Bullpen-game-Colorado Rockies top Phillies, move into Wild Card spot

On a night that the Milwaukee Brewers shuffled the St. Louis Cardinals, Colorado Rockies manager Bud Black shuffled his bullpen to a successful 10-3 rout of the Philadelphia Phillies.

The Colorado Rockies used 8 pitchers—none of them going more than 2 2/3 innings—and they only hit 1 home run offensively to take the second of four from the Fightins, their fifth straight, and to take the second National League Wild Card spot from the Redbirds.

Chad Bettis lasted the longest of the 8 Rockies pitchers (2.2 innings) in his first start since August 12. Bettis did an admirable job considering he only had about 40 pitches in the tank. He would throw 33 in an outing where he saw one unearned run cross the plate in the third.

Rookie DJ Johnson came in to relieve Bettis of a two baserunner mess with two outs and did just that, getting out of the inning.

Bettis was spot starting in a bullpen game that was unplanned until Monday. This happened to Black’s Colorado Rockies because Tyler Anderson went down with a sore shoulder before his start, pushing up Jon Gray and the “next man up” into the rotation.

The Rockies third inning — like Monday night’s game which saw Gray force a double play then a strikeout only to see the Rox rally for five in the bottom half — was the turning point. In the bottom half a night later David Dahl smacked a three-run shot to left — his second in two nights — plating Charlie Blackmon who singled to extend his hit streak to 17 games and DJ LeMahieu.

Chris Rusin came in to start the fourth as the Rockies followed the road map Black told the media about before the game.

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Rusin struck out three in the fourth then added a sweet sacrifice bunt as the Rockies tacked on two and knocked Vince Velasquez from the game.

It turned out that the much talked about late-season Rockies bullpen game only saw their pitcher get three fewer outs than his counterpart in red.

Rusin ended up throwing two innings of shutout ball and got pinch hit for in the fifth as Carlos Gonzalez plated two on a double (his first RBI since Sept 4) to help the game get sideways.

Jake McGee gave up two runs while only getting one out in the sixth but Scott Oberg quickly put out the fire in his 1 2/3 innings. In the bottom of the 7th, the Rockies added two more runs on the scoreboard with RBI singles by DJ LeMahieu and David Dahl to make it 10-3. Yency Almonte, Harrison Musgrave, and Bryan Shaw finished the job as they went a combined scoreless two innings.

With Milwaukee’s 12-4 win over the Cardinals, the Rockies took sole-possession at half game up, with a game at hand over the Cardinals.

The Rockies entered the day one-and-a-half back of the Dodgers and will need the Dodgers to lose one game to force a game 163 for the West, assuming the Rockies win out.

The Rockies magic number to clinch the Wildcard is five and could do so at the earliest on Friday. If they do end up in that Wildcard spot, they would either be in Milwaukee or Chicago as the Cubs have fallen apart atop the central but still hold a half game lead.

On a night that the Milwaukee Brewers shuffled the St. Louis Cardinals, Colorado Rockies manager Bud Black shuffled his bullpen to a successful 10-3 rout of the Philadelphia Phillies.

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