Rockies manager Bud Black has made a routine of telling reporters, “It’s going to take all 25 guys for us to win.”
On Saturday night at Coors Field, the red-hot Rockies again proved that’s not simply coachspeak by Black, as a pair of the team’s non-headlining players led the way to a 4-1 victory over Oakland.
Antonio Senzatela, who began the season as a reliever and was with Triple-A Albuquerque for all of May and June, pitched like an ace, with 5⅓ innings of one-run ball, while grinding through a career-high 110 pitches.
And Pat Valaika, hitting .137 coming into the game, made the most of his ninth start at second base this season with an RBI single in the second inning and a solo home run in the fourth to catalyze Colorado’s offense.
“That was a really good piece of hitting on a ball away from (Valaika) with a nice short stroke for the base hit, and he got the hanging breaking ball for the homer,” Black said. “We saw those types of at-bats all last year from Pat, and it’s been a little variable and up-and-down from him this year.”
The Rockies faced an early deficit when Senzatela’s start nearly went off the rails in the opening frame, as a double, a single, a sacrifice fly and a walk led to a 1-0 Athletics’ lead and an inflated pitch count for the right-hander from the get-go.
“They were battling my pitches,” Senzatela said. “My mentality was to continue to execute, make big pitches and minimize every possible damage that was there.”
The 23-year-old settled in from there, and meanwhile his teammates made up for it in the box.
“He got it together in the middle part of the game,” Black said. “The fourth and fifth were really solid innings — the ball-strike ratio was much better — and he started painting the outside corner with the fastball and breaking ball better. His changeup was effective, too, and we saw a couple strikeouts there.”
Carlos Gonzalez led off the second with the first of a career high-tying three doubles for the night, and Tom Murphy immediately followed with his first career triple to tie the game. Valaika’s single then scored Murphy, giving Colorado a 2-1 advantage.
The Rockies tacked on another run via Nolan Arenado’s National League-leading 27th home run of the season, this one a 370-foot shot to right that barely cleared the out-of-town scoreboard and made it 3-1.
Later, after Jake McGee effectively closed out the sixth inning for Senzatela, Seunghwan Oh turned in a scoreless seventh inning in his Rockies debut while working around a hit and a walk in front of another strong crowd in LoDo, this time a sellout of 47,809 fans.
“In the first game, the end result didn’t come the easiest, obviously,” Oh said. “But hopefully, it’s something I can make better in my next outing and just go from there.”
Adam Ottavino earned his 22nd hold of the season with a clean eighth inning, and Wade Davis set Oakland down in order in the ninth for his 29th save.
It was Colorado’s third straight win, and the Rockies haven’t lost a series since dropping two of three to San Francisco from June 26-28. The Rockies go for the sweep of Oakland at 1:10 p.m. Sunday, with a continued emphasis on the details of the game.
“We’re not focused on the big things — we’re just trying to play good, smart baseball, be sound defensively, and we’re taking every opportunity to get on base,” Carlos Gonzalez said. “Those things, along with starting pitching, are fueling this run.”
