Colorado Rockies vs. St. Louis Cardinals: Highs, lows, and history

With the Colorado Rockies and St. Louis Cardinals together in the spotlight for multiple reasons this weekend, we thought it might be good to look back at some of the moments the two franchises have shared through the years.

Had the 2020 Major League Baseball schedule been played as planned, the St. Louis Cardinals would have visited Coors Field to take on the Colorado Rockies in a three-game series. The highlight of the series could well have been off the field, where the Rockies were set to retire the number 33 worn by Larry Walker (before he was traded to St. Louis, we’ll talk about that later) in festivities set for Sunday.

With the MLB season delayed, the two franchises are now set to meet in the first round of the MLB Dream Bracket, presented by DraftKings. This simulated tournament between all-time rosters from different franchises has the Rockies and Cardinals squaring off in a best-of-seven matchup on Tuesday, April 21. You can watch it unfold at 1 p.m. (MT) on Twitch/MLB.com.

More from Colorado Rockies History

• Colorado Rockies: What if Todd Helton had played football instead?
• The plane crash that changed this Colorado Rockies broadcaster’s life
• The Colorado Rockies have their own “Bobby Bonilla Day” deferred salaries
• Colorado Rockies: Is Ezequiel Tovar on a Troy Tulowitzki-like path to the majors?
• Colorado Rockies: Is the 2022 NL West the best division ever?

Back to reality, the Cardinals lead the overall series with the Rockies, 118-98. In St. Louis, the series is decisively in favor of the home team as the Redbirds own a 67-42 edge in the series, including a four-game sweep last season in what (in my humble opinion) featured easily the worst Players’ Weekend uniforms in the history of that promotion (see the photo at the top for the Star Wars look).

Colorado has not won a series in St. Louis since sweeping the Cardinals during the 2009 campaign.

Monday also marks the anniversary of the first time the Rockies and Cardinals ever played against each other, with St. Louis taking a 5-0 home win. Cardinals leadoff batter Geronimo Pena went 3-for-4 with an RBI and Omar Olivares picked up the save with 3.1 innings of no-hit ball.

In Denver, the Rockies hold a 56-51 edge all-time, last sweeping the Cardinals at Coors Field during the 2010 season.

Speaking of that year, that Cardinals-Rockies series contained one of the top 10 games for the Rockies in the past decade, according to this list from MLB.com’s Thomas Harding. On July 6, St. Louis took a six-run lead into the bottom of the ninth before the Rockies rallied for an improbable win.

Colorado scored nine times in the bottom of the ninth, with Chris Iannetta hitting a three-run homer, Carlos Gonzalez hitting an RBI single as part of a 4-for-6 night, and Seth Smith capping the rally with a game-winning three-run shot off Cardinal reliever Ryan Franklin to send the Coors Field crowd into a frenzy.

The Rockies would also win the next night, 8-7, on a walkoff when Iannetta, the first batter of the bottom of the ninth, would hit a solo homer off Cardinal reliever Evan MacLane. It would be the third straight walkoff win for Colorado that season, with their July 4 game against the San Francisco Giants also ending in the game’s final frame.

St. Louis has also had its last-minute moments in Denver as well. On April 8, 2003, after Todd Helton‘s seventh-inning home run knotted the game at 12, the Cardinals prevailed in 13 innings when Mike Matheny‘s three-run shot handed the visitors a 15-12 edge. Cal Eldred pitched a perfect bottom of the inning to preserve the win.