A chunked piece of turf was the closest thing that came to derailing rookie Peter Lambert and the Rockies on Tuesday night in their 10-3 domination of the Chicago Cubs at Coors Field.
In his second major-league start against the same team he made his dazzling debut against at Wrigley Field last week, Lambert turned in five innings of one-run ball. His lone scare came when the right-hander made a sliding grab on a short popup in foul ground to lead off the fourth inning, his left cleat digging into the grass and causing him to hobble around for a moment.
“I slid and jammed my knee a little bit,” Lambert said. “It was a little sore after that, but nothing crazy. I was able to pitch some more and settle right back in … I was just out there trying to make a baseball play.”
Besides that slight scare that had the home crowd holding its breath? It was easy-breezy for Lambert in his LoDo debut, while the Rockies’ offense was led by big nights from Daniel Murphy and Charlie Blackmon as Colorado extended its home winning streak to 10 games.
Murphy (hitting .400 in June) got Colorado going with a two-run double off Chicago left-hander Jose Quintana in the first, bringing around Blackmon and Nolan Arenado for a 2-0 Colorado advantage.
“Daniel’s starting to feel good about his swing — tonight with a hit to the right field corner and a hit down the left field line, and a hit to right-center,” manager Bud Black said. “He’s a professional hitter who gives us a great at-bat each and every at-bat, each night.”
Jason Heyward then dinged Lambert in the second inning with a solo homer on an elevated fastball, a pitch that carried off the bat and out for a cheap homer 383 feet to left. But Lambert — just as when he was nicked for a run in Chicago — didn’t get rattled as he held the Cubs at bay through the next three-plus innings.
“(Homers) are going to happen. It was the second time they’ve seen me in less than a week and they had some sense of how I was going to attack them,” Lambert said. “I moved on to the next batter immediately and focused on keeping the ball down.”
Meanwhile, Colorado busted out the lumber en route to finishing the night 6-for-14 with runners in scoring position and with RBIs by six players.
A pair of RBI singles by Trevor Story and Arenado in the fifth inning pushed the score to 4-1. Then the Rockies broke out with a five-run sixth highlighted by Blackmon’s three-run supershot to dead center field to make it 9-1, and David Dahl’s sacrifice fly RBI added on in the eighth.
“We’re starting to do some things that we think we can do (overall), and that’s a credit to our offense picking it up over the last six-to-eight weeks,” Black said. “You saw that again in a big way tonight.”
Chad Bettis, Jairo Diaz and Bryan Shaw each pitched a scoreless inning in relief, while the Cubs plated a couple runs off Phillip Diehl in the ninth via RBI singles from Addison Russell and Albert Almora Jr.
“In that type of game, when the lead was what it was, (Bettis, Diaz and Shaw) gave us exactly what we needed,” Black said. “We want strikes, quality strikes, quick outs — that’s exactly what happened.”
It marked the major-league debut for Diehl, who was called up Monday from Triple-A Albuquerque and had impressed in the minors following his trade from the Yankees for outfielder Mike Tauchman on March 23.
“I had to tell myself to take a deep breath, walk around, relax and try not to overdo things,” Diehl said. “Even with (the runs) it was an awesome experience.”
