Colorado Rockies: Antonio Senzatela and offense stellar against Giants

Call off the search party. The Colorado Rockies have found their offense. Against the San Francisco Giants on Saturday, the Rockies scored a season-high 12 runs on 14 hits and are tied for their fourth-best start through 18 games in the history of the franchise.

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The 12 runs may have not even been the most impressive part of this game. Starter Antonio Senzatela, in only his third start ever, pitched just as dominantly at Coors Field as he did in his previous start in San Francisco. Last year he pitched seven starts in Double-A. The righty lowered his ERA to 2.08 by only giving up one run in seven innings.

Senzatela now has three quality starts. He relies heavily on his fastball but he worked on his secondary pitches between this start and his last.

"“I was just working on my slider finishing,” he said. “Trying to get that chop, [that downward movement.]”"

Bud Black also credits Senzatela’s success in this game with the use of his breaking ball and change up, saying it was a truly a three pitch mix. Black has also been talking about his team’s offense would come around.

"“This is what we are talking about,” Black said in reference to the offensive explosion. “We had some timely hitting especially in the eighth. Also, Senzatela going seven innings giving up one run, this might be an understatement but I’ll take that every time.”"

Trevor Story hit another home run and Charlie Blackmon did the same but this time in more traditional fashion. In the first game of the series, Blackmon hit an inside-the-park home run. On Saturday he hit a leadoff triple and hit a fence clearing home run, extending his hitting streak to seven games. After all these reached bases, Blackmon could use a little less of one thing.

"“I’ve been doing a lot of running. I could go for ugh… less running,” Blackmon said wryly with a smile. “It’s way better to hit it over the fence than clank it around a corner.”"

More seriously Blackmon was very impressed with the debuts of Senzatela and fellow rookie Kyle Freeland.

"“They’ve been really good. You know it’s hard to do well in this league and you don’t see many guys come up and translate right away like we saw Trevor [Story] do last year and Jon Gray do really,” Blackmon said. “I’ve been very impressed by Senzatela. He throws a lot of strikes and doesn’t get rattled. I think we have a good baseball player there.”"

Next: Colorado Rockies: Despite Record, They’re Still Not Getting Kudos They Deserve

The bullpen and rotation have been a big reason the Rockies are in first place. The offense will only help matters in a tough NL West heavy opening schedule.

The Rockies try to take the series sweep as Kyle Freeland (1-1,4.91 ERA) takes the mound against Jeff Samardzija (0-3, 6.16 ERA) and the Giants.

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