Colorado Rockies morning after: Charlie Blackmon’s homer caps wild day at Coors Field

A lot can happen for the Colorado Rockies in a span of just a few short hours at 20th and Blake.

Roughly six hours after the San Francisco Giants put up a 10-spot on the Colorado Rockies in the opening inning of the opening game of a double-header, Charlie Blackmon capped a six-run, seventh-inning Colorado comeback with a two-run homer to give the Rockies an 8-6 win. An improbable rally that started against former Colorado reliever Jake McGee and continued with five straight Rockies batters reaching base with two outs in the inning.

Rockies manager Bud Black said in the postgame press conference that it was one of the more satisfying wins during his time at the Colorado helm. It was certainly one of the more important wins of the season for a team that now stands at 11-19 and has looked for any positives to build on throughout the season.

It also marked the first time in some time the Rockies had pulled off that big of a comeback so late. The last time Colorado won a game when trailing by four or more runs in their final at-bat was on August 17, 2014, per Elias. The Rockies ended up with a 10-9 win that day over the Cincinnati Reds after trailing 9-5 entering the bottom of the ninth.

For Blackmon, who finished the night hitting just .191 on the season, the celebration at home plate was a salve that healed what had been an uninspiring Rockies performance up until the very end.

“It was a pretty tough day for me and pretty tough day for the Rockies,” Blackmon said after a day where he went 1-for-8 at the plate, but that one hit was the walkoff homer. “It was nice to come through in that spot and get a hit after the guys worked so hard to put a rally together.”

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While Blackmon’s blast was the highlight that you’ll see on replay, there were plenty of moments that mattered for the Rockies during the second game of the day. C.J. Cron blasted his fifth homer of the season in the fourth inning to get the Rockies on the board, and then Colorado’s defense showed up big in the top of the third.

With San Francisco opening the frame with a Wilmer Flores single and Brandon Belt walk, the Giants looked like they could blow the second game open like they did the first with that 10-run opener. However, Raimel Tapia made one of his best defensive plays of the season so far by throwing out Flores at the plate after an Evan Longoria single, then Austin Slater grounded into a nicely turned double play (starting with a spinning Ryan McMahon) to end the threat.

With a quick three-game stop in Denver to face the Giants after a tough road trip and ahead of what will be an emotional weekend coming up in St. Louis, Colorado needed some late-inning Coors Field magic on Tuesday night and got it. The six runs scored by the Rockies in the bottom of the seventh matched the team’s total output from the first 13 innings of the day.

Will it propel the Rockies to a postseason berth? Will this be seen as the start of a miraculous rise in the standings? Likely not. However, for one moment on Tuesday night, Charlie Blackmon looked like the Chuck Nazty of old and the Rockies had stepped on the hearts of a division rival. In the grand scheme of things, that’s not too bad of a night in LoDo.