did not wait for kudos rounding first base in the sixth inning. He patted himself on the head, twice. The Rockies’ squat left fielder — “a pest,” his general manager called him — nailed a center-served pitch from the best lefty in baseball over the center-field wall and into Coors Field’s forest.
Parra’s brawny swat back-ended an improbable inning in the Rockies’ 4-2 takedown of three-time Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw and the with a sold-out Coors Field crowd of 48,012. Immediately before him, Colorado first baseman lofted a two-run homer to center field.
“I was just happy in the moment,” Parra said. “He’s the best pitcher right now in the big leagues. I know it’s nasty pitching. Every inning, we try to put a man on base because we know he’s special. We know it’s not easy to score on him.”
This, please remember, is the same Kershaw who no-hit the Rockies in 2014 with one of the greatest-pitched games in baseball history, when he struck out 15 and walked none and left Troy Tulowitzki’s mouth hanging open and his arms dangling over the dugout fence.
Kershaw is a master on the mound, with a hitchy windup and a pitch arsenal that confuses even the best hitters in the game.
The Rockies did not wait for his mistakes. Third baseman hit a two-out home run off Kershaw in the first inning. Center fielder tripled in the third and shortstop doubled in the fourth. Blackmon’s triple was the first against Kershaw in nearly a year.
“He’s a tough customer,” Colorado manager Bud Black. “As tough as anybody in the major leagues. You have to do everything you can, every at-bat you have to do anything possible.”
BOXSCORE:
The back-to-back shots from Reynolds and Parra in the sixth were the first consecutive homers allowed by Kershaw in his 10-year career. It was just his third multihomer inning, the first since 2009, when Rockies Clint Barmes and Ryan Spilborghs did it against him at Coors Field. Kershaw only gave up three home runs within a month twice in the previous two seasons.
In their home-opener Friday, the Rockies nibbled to a 2-1 win over the Dodgers. They beat the Brewers 2-1, too, on Thursday. Colorado had not won consecutive 2-1 games since 1995.
But this, in a young season, is some kind of revamped Rockies. Their bullpen, so maligned a year ago, shut down the Dodgers again with scoreless appearances from Mike Dunn and . , who struck out the side Friday in the ninth inning, gave up a run on Adrian Gonzalez’s single to right in the eighth. But closer Greg Holland struck out two in a hitless ninth.
And Jon Gray, the Rockies’ 25-year-old answer to Kershaw, gave up just one run on four hits over 5 1/3 innings.
Gray’s pregame scouting report and pep talk from Rockies manager Bud Black did not include the other guy.
“Jon knows who he is going against,” Black said. “You know what, I think Kershaw knows who he is going against too. This is a marquee matchup.”
Only Andrew Toles’ two-out solo homer off Gray — he was nearly to third base before Toles realized his looper carried past the fence — was the only run the right-hander allowed.
Black made a last-minute defensive switch, flipping Parra and in the corner outfield spots. It paid off. Parra tracked back on a sprint to steal a Corey Seager line drive at the track in the third, then dove in on a Yasiel Puig liner in the fourth. And Cardullo slid on his knees to keep Gray alive in the fifth on a Kershaw blooper.
“It’s tough going against a guy like that,” Gray said of his counterpart. “He definitely makes the game worth more.”
In improving to 5-1 — and atop the National League West, a division won by the Dodgers in each of the past four seasons — the Rockies are winning every which way: powerful starting pitching, reliable relief work, home runs, timely hits and stellar defense.
And one big victory over the Dodgers’ ace.
