With the Rockies holding an early lead and Germán Márquez retiring the first nine Mariners with ease, manager Bud Black sensed his ace had a chance to deliver a special performance.

Turns out his intuition was right. For 5 2/3 innings, Márquez was perfect, mixing in his four-seam fastball, slider and curveball to set down the Mariners’ hitters in order.

• Box score

Márquez went on to pitch eight innings of one-run ball on two hits, and Trevor Story drilled two home runs, helping lead the Rockies to a 5-2 win in Wednesday’s series finale at T-Mobile Park. It was Márquez's first road win of the season in six starts away from Coors.

“I told [Rockies’ pitching coach] Steve Foster after [Story's fourth-inning] home run, I could visualize that happening, a no-hitter [or] perfect game,” Black said. “ … And I thought with 10 outs left that it might happen because I thought his stuff was good. The fastball was live, it had velocity and movement. The breaking ball was sharp. He was throwing strikes [and] his pitch count was manageable.”

Story slugged a solo home run in the fourth inning before blasting a two-run shot in the eighth. The long balls gave Story his 16th multi-home run game, and his first multi-homer game since July 26, 2020, a 5-2 win over the Rangers.

“First one, just got a slider that stayed up in the zone,” Story said of his two-homer day. “ … The second one, that guy [Vinny Nittoli] has a tough angle to him, he kind of steps out at a righty, so I was really just trying to hang in there and hit a ball hard and, yeah, I was able to do that.”

Márquez, who carried a career 2.08 ERA at T-Mobile Park, had his perfect-game bid end when he allowed a home run to Taylor Trammell. It was the only run he allowed; he struck out seven batters and walked none.

“I feel like every time I go out, I'm going to pitch [and] I’m going to give them my best,” said Márquez, when asked about his success in Seattle. “No matter what park, all I want to do is my best.”

In his win, Márquez lowered his ERA to 3.99, representing another major step forward for the 26-year-old, who just two starts ago allowed nine runs (eight earned) against the Reds.

“[I’m] still working on my command, and getting on my changeup,” Márquez added. “That was a weird game, so I took that game off of my mind, and my mind was like, ‘I have to pitch better.’”

The series-splitting win also served as just the sixth road win for the Rockies, now improving the club to 6-28 on the year on the road.

“This game means a lot to me because we have to start winning on the road,” Márquez said. “And I think today was my chance to show and give the team a chance to win.”

Raimel Tapia, who entered Wednesday's finale with an 18-game hitting streak -- the longest such streak by a Rockies player since Carlos González’s 19-game hitting streak in 2016 -- finished 0-for-4. He did, however, make a running grab of Luis Torrens’ hard-hit liner, helping keep Márquez’s perfect game alive to close out the fifth inning.

Brendan Rodgers put the Rockies ahead in the second with a two-run home run, his fourth of the season. Rodgers, who’s coming into his own this season after a tough year in 2020, finished the series going 3-for-7 with a triple Tuesday and the two-run homer Wednesday. His development is one that Black is especially impressed with.

“I think we're seeing snippets of what everybody who's watched him play going back to our amateur scouts before the Draft [saw],” Black added.

The win, coming off a 5-2 homestand, is the exact type of momentum the Rockies needed. And with Márquez finding his groove over his last two starts (14 innings of one-run ball), it’s the exact type of game both he and the team can build off of.

“That's the kind of guy he is. He's an ace,” Story said. “He had his stuff today, so it was fun to play behind him, and he just created a lot of momentum for the offense.

“We knew he had his good stuff. … It's fun to play behind that. It's awesome.”