DENVER – Jake McCarthy came to the plate in the bottom of the ninth, the bases loaded, with a chance to get the Colorado Rockies back in the game.
He did more than give them a chance – his bases-clearing triple delivered a 3-2 walk-off win against Aroldis Chapman, one of the best closers in baseball.
“That was surreal. It still hasn’t sunk in,” said McCarthy, soaked after a Powerade shower from his teammates. “Off a great pitcher like that, it all happened pretty fast.”
McCarthy became the sixth player in the Divisional Era (since 1969) to hit a walk-off triple when trailing by two runs, and the first since Grady Sizemore in 2006.
Walk-off triples when trailing by 2 runs, Divisional Era (1969):
6/22/26 Jake McCarthy
8/11/06 Grady Sizemore
9/26/87 Juan Beníquez
4/14/80 Dave Collins
9/3/71 Manny Mota
5/29/71 Joe Torre
The Rockies finished the game with seven straight singles before McCarthy's triple. They're the first team since at least 1961 — the Expansion Era — with hits in each of their final eight plate appearances of a game, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
“Eight straight hits to end the ballgame against two world-class pitchers, [Garrett] Whitlock and Chapman,” manager Warren Schaeffer said. “They don’t quit. We’ve been saying it all year: we fight till the end, and tonight we got rewarded for it.”
Colorado couldn’t muster a run through eight innings but used the dramatic rally to overcome a dominant six innings by Boston rookie Jake Bennett. He struck out nine and didn’t walk a batter, controlling the Rockies through 72 pitches and outdueling Ryan Feltner.
“The starter was humming tonight. He was really good,” McCarthy said of Bennett. “He had a couple of fastballs that played at the top, he mixed in his offspeed – that guy’s really good. It was a good sign to see him get out of the game.”
Neither pitcher gave up a run through five innings but the Red Sox got to Feltner for two runs in the sixth.
The right-hander had a shaky start – he walked three of the first seven batters he faced – before settling in and retiring 13 in a row ahead of Boston’s two-out rally.
“He was outstanding,” Schaeffer said. “He settled in, started pounding the strike zone. It was great.”
It looked like Feltner would take the loss after Colorado squandered a chance in the eighth. With one out the Rockies hit four straight singles off Whitlock but were still trailing 2-0 after Edouard Julien was thrown out at home and Willi Castro was cut down at second to end the inning.
But their resiliency came through in the ninth.
TJ Rumfield, the NL Rookie of the Month in May, started the rally with a single to left on an 0-2 count. Hunter Goodman followed with another single and rookie Cole Carrigg bunted up the third-base line, beating the throw to first.
“You saw the inning before, what was it, five straight line drives off a good pitcher?” McCarthy said. “Rumfield staying on a slider when a guy's throwing 101 mph, Goody, Carrig getting the bunt down – two of them are rookies. Those are poised at-bats. If they roll over and die I don’t even get an at-bat.”
McCarthy, who had an inside-the-park home run Saturday night against Pittsburgh, lined a 99.6 mph sinker past the diving Caleb Durbin at third base. The ball bounced off the wall and eluded Jarren Duran as Carrigg raced around the bags and easily scored to give Colorado a walk-off win.
“I was watching from the training room,” Feltner said. “It was super cool to see us string those hits together. The bunt by Carrigg was huge, and Jake finishing it off with that hit down the line, it was a pretty sweet way to end the game.”