Roadblocks abounded for the Rockies around Coors Field on Wednesday. There was Matt Carpenter, cracking his back for a stretched-out, reach-and-throw from third base. That was Kolten Wong coloring his pants green with grass sliding to save a run.
For every Rockies step up and away from a disastrous May, there remain giant leaps back to relevance in June.
And the bar is set by the St. Louis Cardinals.
The best team in baseball looked it like Wednesday in a 4-2 series finale victory over the Rockies in front of a mixed-allegiance matinee crowd of 30,698.
“We’ve been getting a clutch hit lately, but today it didn’t it happen,” Rockies manager Walt Weiss said.
The Rockies, needing to dig out of a hole during a 10-game homestand, went 5-5 to stay four games under .500. They are back in last place in the National League West.
After earning their first series victory over the Cardinals (39-21) since 2010, the Rockies (27-31) were going for a sweep before a six-game road trip to Miami and Houston.
“We’ll take 5-5,” said Daniel Descalso, the former Cardinals infielder who played Wednesday at shortstop in place Troy Tulowitzki. “We played against some teams at the top of their divisions. We proved we can play against anybody. It was a nice homestand in that regard.”
Carpenter, the runaway leading All-Star Game vote leader among National League third basemen, had two hits and an RBI and scored a run.
In a national fan vote, he’s getting more than three times as many all-star votes as Nolan Arenado, the third baseman who has been the Rockies’ best everyday player. Carpenter’s keen defensive play in the first looked very Arenado-y. It just so happened he threw out Arenado.
Carpenter singled in Wong in the third to give St. Louis an early lead. Carpenter then scored in the fifth on Mark Reynolds’ RBI double.
Wong, too, is burying his Rockies second baseman counterpart in voting. DJ LeMahieu, who doubled in the first inning but didn’t score, isn’t in the top five among vote-getters despite a .348 batting average that ranks second in the NL. But he couldn’t get home because of Wong, who saved at least one run in the first with a slide in the grass in short right field for a nifty play to get Carlos Gonzalez at first base. LeMahieu, who was on the move, would have scored.
“There’s a lot of game left, but that’s a big play there,” Weiss said. “Usually that’s what it takes to beat a team like that. You’re not going to get a ton of opportunities. You have to cash in when they show up.”
Chad Bettis had his most difficult start of the season. He threw five innings and gave up six hits and three runs, while striking out six. The Rockies were 5-0 behind him since his call-up from Triple-A in May. Each of the three runs St. Louis scored off Bettis came with two outs.
“You get to two outs, you have to stay focused,” Bettis said. “I felt out of whack the whole day — one of those days where it just didn’t seem like anything was right.”
Cardinals starter Carlos Martinez held the Rockies scoreless until the seventh, when Ben Paulsen belted a two-run homer.
But the Cardinals, who lost slugger Matt Holiday to a quadriceps injury Monday, bounced back after losing two in a row. Randal Grichuk hit a game-clinching homer off Rockies reliever Tommy Kahnle to lead off the eighth.
“They’re so talented, so pitching-rich, I don’t know if they’ll ever be down,” Weiss said.
Nick Groke: ngroke@denverpost.com or
