Colorado Rockies: The videos of the first intrasquad game of summer

The Colorado Rockies were able to play their first intrasquad game on Saturday and there were a lot of good (and a couple of bad) things that happened.

At least until next week, the Colorado Rockies will not be streaming or broadcasting their intrasquad games at Coors Field so for now, we just have some video that media members record from the press box.

One of those media members was Rox Pile’s Kevin Henry and he and some others were able to record some of the highlights of the game.

The game was between the Purple team and the Pinstripes team. Among others, the Purple team had Nolan Arenado, Trevor Story, Matt Kemp, and Brendan Rodgers. The Pinstripes team featured, among others, Ryan McMahon, David Dahl, Daniel Murphy, and Garrett Hampson.

Here were each team’s starting lineups.

While there was no crowd, Thomas Harding of MLB.com reported that Rockies’ second baseman Ryan McMahon was waving to the nonexistent crowd to make noise, which is a very Ryan McMahon-thing to do: Having fun being on the field and not being afraid show it.

Ryan Rolison was on the mound for the Pinstripes team to start and, in the first inning, he walked Trevor Story to allow his first baserunner.

However, the Rockies’ top pitching prospect induced a 6-4-3 double play on Nolan Arenado to retire Story and Arenado.

In the next half-inning, Garrett Hampson was able to stretch a single into double (no video of that). Daniel Murphy drove him in with an RBI single to make it 1-0 Pinstripes.

Ryan McMahon lined into a double play to end the inning, though. That meant that both teams ended their first frame in a double play.

To lead off the top of the second inning, Ryan Rolison faced Matt Kemp in a matchup of youth and experience.

In the third inning, Jake McGee came on in relief of starter Jose Mujica. The Purple team made it 2-0 in the third when Drew Butera hit a home run off of McGee.

Two batters later, Sam Hilliard hit a double against McGee and therefore, Wade Davis came on in relief of him.

In the top of the third, Tim Collins came in relief of Ryan Rolison. After Trevor Story worked it to a 3-2 count, Trevor Story delivered with a solo homer to tie the game at 2.

The next batter was Nolan Arenado, who made it back-to-back homers off of Collins to make it 3-2 Purple (language warning on this one).

In the next half-inning, Chris Owings doubled and, with James Pazos on the mound, he hit Dom Nunez in the back.

Pazos continued being wild as he uncorked a wild pitch that scored Owings to tie the game at 3.

With Nunez on third and Yonathan Daza at the plate, things went a bit haywire as there were two rundowns after an excellent defensive play by Nolan Arenado.

Yency Almonte came on in relief and had a clean 1-2-3 inning. During that inning, we found out something else that you may not think of hearing with fans in the seats but with no fans, you can hear conversations on the field from the press box.

In the top of the sixth inning (which was the last frame of play), Nolan Arenado hit his second home run of the game to make it 4-3 Purple, which would be the final score. This one was hit off of Jesus Tinoco.

As you saw with the videos, Arenado is on a tear already and he had four other home runs against live pitching (not batting practice) in the last three days. He had a few excellent plays at third base as well.

He, and the rest of the Rockies, have also started to embrace the way of celebrating in the time of COVID-19.

Story also looked good both offensively and defensively, and some other Rockies flourished as well, including Hampson and Owings.

The area that was most shaky in the game was the bullpen as McGee and Pazos struggled, as did others.

Stay tuned for our continuing coverage of the Rockies intrasquad games and interviews with players and coaches from Coors Field in the coming hours and days.