Goodman's 449-foot blast the latest in a long-homer surge

DENVER -- Welcome to the Hunter Goodman long-drive of the month contest.

Goodman helped the Rockies end a five-game home losing streak with 4-3 victory over the Diamondbacks on Friday night with his team-high 25th homer of the season -- a two-out solo homer in the first inning that traveled a Statcast-projected 449 feet.

The homer, off Diamondbacks starting pitcher Brandon Pfaadt, was the second-longest of the season for Goodman -- a catcher who was the lone Rockies All-Star this year. It landed one foot short of his homer off the Pirates’ Mitch Keller on Aug. 3. In fact, four of his five longest homers this season have come this month.

“I don’t know,” Goodman said when asked to explain his impressive distances. “We made a recent adjustment with my legs and lower body, to try to stay in my back side a little more. I’ve been leaking forward. Maybe it’s helped a little bit.

“But to be honest, they all count if they go over the fence.”

Interestingly enough, his last three home runs -- all long ones -- have come using a borrowed driver.

Goodman was among few Rockies to adopt the “Torpedo” bat (with a barrel tapered toward the end) that was the rage at the start of the season. But the last three homers -- two in St. Louis during the last road trip, and Friday’s -- were with a bat borrowed from teammate Kyle Farmer.

It’s a half-inch shorter (33 1/2 inches) than his usual bat. And fitting of Farmer, a teammate who has seen a lot and doesn’t mind sharing, the bat he lent to his teammate was quite old-school.

“I’ll probably go back and forth, but I liked it [Farmer’s bat] and I’ve had a lot of success with it,” Goodman said. “And ‘Farm’ was kind enough to let me use it.”

The bat also allowed him to preserve his specialized Players Weekend bat -- an ode to Memphis. Having grown up just outside the home of the delta blues, Goodman ordered a blue and red bat emblazoned with (among other decorations):

• A tiger head to honor his baseball development alma mater, the University of Memphis.
• The logo of B.B. King’s club on Beale Street.
• A guitar to honor a music scene rich in blues, soul, funk and rock.
• The Pyramid -- once a sports arena, now a hunting and fishing sporting goods shop.
• The Mississippi River.

“I probably won’t end up using it -- I’ll probably put it in my office or something one day,” Goodman said.

No matter his tool of choice, Goodman is hitting balls a long way.

Of the five longest homers, only his second-longest homer occurred outside of August -- 443 feet off the Astros’ Josh Hader on July 1.

He went 442 feet for the longest homer of the season at Busch Stadium on Tuesday. Wednesday’s game-winner in deciding blow in a 6-5 win over the Cardinals at Busch went 436 feet.

Friday’s homer mattered, but the team’s offense mattered more. Goodman’s homer was one of eight hits for the Rockies, who didn’t score more than one run in an inning but applied constant pressure to Pfaadt, to the tune of four runs on eight hits and two walks in six innings.

Losses these days still are more lopsided than ideal. But the wins are more frequent. The record is 11-15 since the All-Star break -- a marked improvement for a team sitting at 33-89.

Instead of fading, Goodman is growing stronger in his first year as the Rockies’ primary catcher.

Friday was his 71st game behind the plate. He called and caught a workmanlike start from Tanner Gordon (five innings, three runs on five hits), the relief corps of Jimmy Herget (two innings), Juan Mejia and Victor Vodnik (five saves) struck out eight of 12 batters.

“He hits the ball a long way,” Rockies interim manager Warren Schaeffer said. “He’s just a strong guy that is having a really good year. His timing is very good. He doesn’t seem like he’s slowing down late in the year, which is a very good thing for him, catching as much as he has for the first time in his career.”

Goodman, 25, believes he and the club are growing.

“There’s a quote that some people say: There’s winning, and there’s learning,” Goodman said. “We’ve done a lot of learning this year. We’re figuring out a better way to go about things, and playing better, cleaner baseball right now.”

It helps to have Goodman blasting baseballs clean over the fence.