DJ LeMahieu nearly leaped out of his knee-highs in the fourth inning Sunday at Coors Field. His black socks played more like springs. LeMahieu bounded so high to glove-stab a line drive, he crashed down in a barrel roll, like a skydiver.
The Rockies, who fell to a new season low with an ugly loss to the bottom-feeding Milwaukee Brewers on Friday, needed all the lift they could get from their second baseman.
With runs piling a mile high, the Rockies used more keen defense behind an improved start from pitcher Chris Rusin to rout the Brewers 10-4 in front of a loud Father’s Day crowd of 41,487.
“I didn’t think I had any chance,” LeMahieu said of his defensive gem. “I just jumped up, and you never know.”
Saturday, with a five-game losing streak on the line, and looking back at nine losses in 10 days, several Rockies wore knee-high black stockings as slump busters. Colorado then beat the Brewers 5-1.
LeMahieu, Nolan Arenado and Rafael Ynoa wore them again Sunday. And the Rockies salvaged a series against one of the worst teams in baseball.
“We came into this homestand knowing we had to play well,” said manager Walt Weiss, whose Rockies are 2-3 on this eight-game run in Denver, with three to go against the Arizona Diamondbacks starting Tuesday.
“We haven’t tore it up by any means. But winning a series is big,” Weiss said.
The Rockies hit the ball Sunday like it had eyes. Eight players had at least one hit. Nick Hundley went 4-for-4, including two doubles. Charlie Blackmon collected four RBIs, and Troy Tulowitzki had three. Arenado homered to left field.
“I can’t tell you how many times the other team got that little dribbler for a hit the last week,” LeMahieu said. “And we’re going, ‘Where’s ours?’ Today we got a bunch of those.”
Trailing 1-0 in the third inning, the Rockies busted loose. Hundley led off with a single to center. Blackmon, LeMahieu and Tulo- witzki followed with RBIs for a 3-1 lead.
In the fourth, LeMahieu followed his leaping putout of Jonathan Lucroy’s hard line drive with a hard-charging, barehanded groundout of Aramis Ramirez. And the Rockies got busy again.
Arenado led off the bottom of the fourth with a home run — his team-leading 17th for a team- leading 54th RBI. Blackmon’s single scored Hundley and Ynoa. Colorado doubled its score.
In the sixth, every Rockies hitter came to bat. Colorado scored four runs, two off Tulowitzki’s single to center.
Rusin (3-2) was coming off a career-worst seven runs allowed in just four innings last week against the Astros in Houston. He capped the damage Sunday against the Brewers, allowing seven hits but only three runs in six innings.
Milwaukee pitcher Matt Garza couldn’t keep Coors Field under control. He gave up 13 hits and 10 runs (seven earned) in 5 innings. In the first 230 games of his career, Garza never allowed as many as 13 hits in a game. He has now done it his last two times out.
After falling a season-worst 11 games below .500 with their series-opening loss to Milwaukee on Friday, the Rockies (30-39) have won consecutive games for the first time since June 9. They have won back-to-back games just twice this month.
Before winning Sunday, the Rockies were hitting just .215 with 32 runs scored in their past 10 games. In the series finale against Milwaukee, Colorado spiked the curve by going 15-for-35 with 10 runs scored.
When they swept the Brewers in Milwaukee to open the season in April, the Rockies did it by hitting throughout the lineup. They collected 38 hits — still their season high for hits in a three-game series.
Since that sweep, the Rockies fell to last place in the National League West. They are 8½ games behind the division-leading Los Angeles Dodgers, who are 39-31 after winning Sunday night.
“We sat in here and looked at ourselves in the mirror. Now we have to play really well for a long time to dig out of it,” Hundley said. “We accept that fact. We embrace it. So here we go.
“We can’t worry about first place right now. We have to worry about getting back to .500 and winning series.”
Nick Groke: ngroke@denverpost.com or
