As the lights at Coors Field dimmed after more than six hours of baseball, you could almost see a tiny, dying flame burn out at home plate.
The Rockies’ slimmest of playoff hopes were extinguished Wednesday night, reduced to ash by a bullpen that delivered its most disastrous performance to date.
The Rockies were on the verge of a sweep of the Los Angeles Dodgers, leading by six runs through seven innings in the second game of the doubleheader. In the blink of an eye, the Dodgers struck for eight runs, capped by Andrew Toles’ ninth-inning grand slam off Adam Ottavino, to hand the Rockies a crippling 10-8 loss.
“We won the series, but it doesn’t feel like it because we had that game in hand,” Rockies manager Walt Weiss said.
Ottavino was out of sorts from the start, walking two batters before giving up the two-out homer to Toles, which caught far too much of the plate.
“I didn’t have my best command tonight and I really let everybody down,” he said. “I fell behind the first guy and it was more of the same the rest of the way. That’s about as disappointing as it gets.
“It was an unacceptable performance.”
Stephen Cardullo had set up a 29th birthday for the ages with a grand slam in the second game — his second home run of the day. After he hit his first career home run during the Rockies’ 7-0 victory over the Dodgers in the opener, Cardullo sounded like a guy riding the wave of the best week of his professional life.
“I’m at a loss for words,” he said.
That was before Cardullo, who spent the previous four seasons before this one playing in independent leagues, stepped to the plate in the first inning of the nightcap and belted a grand slam to left-center field, sending his remarkable story into the territory of the absurd.
The Rockies’ victory in the opener ensured their fifth consecutive series victory over a team currently in first place in the National League. And Cardullo’s grand slam had the Rockies in position for a sweep, but then another bullpen meltdown threw a wet blanket on the day’s charming story.
Matt Carasiti, who entered the game having surrendered 11 earned run in only 9 1/3 innings, was battered for three runs while recording only one out in the eighth inning. And Ottavino was in trouble from the start.
“I should never give up five runs in an inning, should never walk two guys,” he said. “I’ve just got to be better than that.”
The latest in a hair-pulling line of gut-punch collapses by the bullpen also ruined a chance at victory for rookie Jeff Hoffman.
Making his third career start in Wednesday’s second game, Hoffman surrendered two runs on three hits in five innings. He gave up a leadoff home run to Chase Utley but quickly settled down. A two-out, run-scoring double by Toles represented the only other damage against the 23-year-old right-hander, who worked his way around three walks.
“I felt good out there,” Hoffman said. “I was a little groggy at first, but I felt like once I settled in there in the third, everything was fine.”
Tyler Anderson pitched 6 1/3 scoreless innings in the opener, commanding his fastball and mixing his changeup to confound Dodgers hitters.
He worked around heavy traffic in the sixth inning with strikeouts of Corey Seager, Adrian Gonzalez and Rob Segedin to put a stamp on the outing, improving his record to 5-5 and lowering his team-leading ERA among starters to 3.43.
“Itap pretty much what we’ve seen all along,” Weiss said. “He was in complete control of the strike zone.”
Cristhian Adames set a career high for hits in a game with three … twice. Adames had three hits in the opener and three in the second game, and he had a triple in each.
Nolan Arenado hit his 36th home run of the season in the second game, a two-run shot that extended his club record for most RBIs in the month of August to 36.
But even that wasn’t enough cushion.
“Bottom line,” Weiss said, “is we’re up six with six outs to go and we didn’t win the game.”
