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.
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.
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.