If the early results are any indication, life without Troy Tulowitzki is going to be an exercise in scratching and clawing for the Rockies.
Take Saturday night, for instance, when the Rockies spent the first six innings scratching for runs and the final inning clawing to prevent them.
When the agony and ecstasy finally ended, the Rockies had an 8-7 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers, putting them in position to sweep the teams’ three-game series today at Coors Field.
How wild was it? Let’s put it this way: The Brewers led 4-1 in the bottom of the seventh and the Rockies led 8-4 with two outs in the ninth.
“It was crazy, but we won,” said Seth Smith, whose two-run homer tied the game at 4-4 in the seventh. “I’ll let you guys talk about the craziness. We’ve got to get ready for another game.”
Jonathan Lucroy’s final at-bat of the game, the one that almost had no end, was typical of one of the most bizarre games in recent Coors Field history. The Brewers had loaded the bases after Corey Hart’s three-run homer off Manuel Corpas, bringing Lucroy to the plate to face Rafael Betancourt.
Lucroy’s at-bat lasted 10 pitches and eight minutes. At one point, he fouled off six consecutive pitches before flying out to Brad Hawpe in right field to end it.
There were three runs scored in the first six innings, 12 in the final three. Other than that, it was just another night at the yard in LoDo.
Jeff Francis started for the Rockies, but he watched all the late-inning drama play out on a clubhouse TV.
“It’s nerve-wracking,” Francis said. “You’re in here and you can’t do anything. . . . So you become a fan at that point. You’re in here, you’re sweating, you’re angry, and you say how much you hate baseball.
“And then, when it’s over, you say how much you love baseball. It’s the nature of this game.”
Francis was victimized by some bad breaks, including a throw to first base by Ian Stewart that Todd Helton lost in the sun in the sixth, and a broken-bat run-scoring double by Alcides Escobar in the seventh.
At that point, things looked borderline hopeless for the Rockies, what with their lineup struggling and Tulowitzki lost for six weeks with a broken bone in his left wrist. But then things started happening.
Rockies manager Jim Tracy double-switched in the top of the seventh, bringing Matt Belisle and Smith into the game, with Smith inheriting the No. 9 spot in the order. The move paid off within minutes when Smith, after Miguel Olivo’s solo homer, hit a towering two-run shot to right off Carlos Villanueva to tie it at 4-4.
That’s when the real fun began.
Jason Giambi drove in the go-ahead run in the eighth with a sacrifice fly, his first pinch-hit RBI of the season. By the time the inning ended, the Rockies had added three more runs, the first when Chris Nelson, making his major-league debut, kicked the ball out of Lucroy’s glove.
The play at the plate didn’t end there. The ball rolled far enough away for Stewart to score, putting the Rockies ahead 7-4. Jonathan Herrera followed with a run-scoring single, his fourth hit of the night, to make it 8-4.
“Obviously it got a little bit more exciting than we would have liked to have seen,” Tracy said, “but we got the out we needed to win the game.”
Jim Armstrong: 303-954-1269 or jmarmstrong@denverpost.com
