No such thing as an ugly win for Rockies in wild comeback

ANAHEIM — It wasn’t pretty, but boy, will the Rockies take it.

An offense that wasn’t opportunistic, poor defense and a crooked inning from left-hander Kyle Freeland put the Rockies in a 6-3 hole. But five runs to open the eighth inning and another in the ninth capped off a wild 9-8 win over the Angels on Monday.

“They give 12 free passes, we kick the ball around a bunch tonight, throw it around sloppy, but somebody's got to win that game,” Rockies manager Warren Schaeffer said. “I thought the boys showed incredible, incredible resilience, bouncing back multiple times, and just sticking with it. And throwing up really, really good at-bats all night long, despite the horrendous defense.”

Getting into the Southern California spirit, the Rockies had heavy traffic on the bases throughout Monday night’s game, but it wasn’t until the eighth inning that the floodgates opened.

The Rockies left 10 runners on base through seven innings, but broke through with five runs in the eighth thanks to quality two-strike hitting.

Facing a quality starting pitcher in right-hander José Soriano, the Rockies’ bats were able to run up his pitch count by drawing seven walks and getting hit by pitches twice. But the lineup only mustered three hits against Soriano, which resulted in three runs in the 4 2/3 innings that he pitched.

The comeback began with consecutive two-strike doubles by Sterlin Thompson and Kyle Karros to scratch the first run across. Jake McCarthy walked and Tyler Freeman notched a two-strike single of his own to score Karros to make it a one-run game.

“The whole game, even though we did punch out 10 times, I thought that the at-bats were excellent tonight,” Schaeffer said. “But two-strike battling is something we talk about all the time. The at-bat's never over until it's over.”

Hunter Goodman then hit a laser of a three-run home run to give the Rockies an 8-6 lead.

The Rockies erased a three-run deficit without even recording an out.

But it was far from over.

The Angels responded right away with a two-run triple by designated hitter Jorge Soler to tie the game once again. With a runner on third and one out, right-hander Antonio Senzatela walked Mike Trout, but got out of the jam by getting Vaughn Grissom to hit into a double play.

In the top of the ninth, Karros reached on a single and McCarthy came up with the RBI double to score the eventual winning run on TJ Rumfield’s sacrifice fly.

In the top of the ninth, Karros reached on a single and McCarthy doubled, which set up TJ Rumfield for a go-ahead pinch-hit sacrifice fly for the eventual winning run.

“Gritty,” Karros said of the Rockies' performance. “I mean the whole game, it wasn't super clean. I mean we made four errors. I made an error. By no means was this a clean game played by us or myself. But at the end of the day, the only thing that matters is we finished with more runs than the other team.”

The Rockies were in a three-run hole to begin with because the defense committed four errors on the night and Freeland got unlucky with a few soft hits that ultimately led to a grand slam by left fielder Jose Siri to cap off a five-run third inning for the Angels.

Other than the one nightmare frame, Freeland only allowed two baserunners that didn’t reach on errors. His final line came out to 5 2/3 innings of work with six runs allowed (five earned) on seven hits and a walk with four strikeouts.

“This one felt like it was something I could build off of, minus that third inning,” Freeland said. “I mean, one pitch with the bases loaded, he put a really good swing on it. Nothing I can do about it besides turn the page and try to continue to get outs for my team and keep them in a spot where the offense can potentially make a comeback like they did.”