Colorado Rockies morning after: The good, the bad, and the franchise record

LoDo Magic is alive and well for the Colorado Rockies in 2021. So is C.J. Cron’s incredible August run at 20th and Blake.

Just minutes after San Diego’s Trent Grisham tied the game with a two-out, three-run homer off Colorado closer Daniel Bard in the top of the ninth, Cron deposited his 20th home run of the season into the right field seats. The long ball gave Colorado its 11th walk-off win of the season, a franchise record, and continued the Rockies’ penchant for winning at home. Now 39-21 in their first 60 home games of the campaign, only three MLB teams have won more games at home this season than Colorado.

Few teams have been better at home than the Rockies this season, and few players have been as good in their home park as Cron has been since the calendar turned to August.

With one swing, C.J. Cron gave the Colorado Rockies a win and sliced the San Diego Padres’ Wild Card lead by another game.

Cron took the first pitch he saw from Padres reliever Daniel Hudson and sent it 414 feet to give the Rockies the victory. After a 2-for-3 performance, Cron is now slashing .439/.540/.951 through his last 12 games.

That’s part of the good we saw from the Rockies at Coors Field on Monday night.

Plenty of other positives came from Connor Joe, who was celebrating his 29th birthday, and did it in style with a home run to lead off the batting for the Rockies and a single in his next at-bat. He also had a defensive gem in the outfield when the Padres were building momentum in the sixth.

How about some more of the good stuff?

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How about Charlie Blackmon’s eighth homer of the season and a two-run double from Trevor Story that teamed up to give the Rockies a four-run third inning? And how about seven strong frames from Antonio Senzatela on the mound, marking his fifth start of the season with two or fewer earned runs surrendered through seven or more innings?

The bad? Well, it’s hard not to look at the blown save by Bard. While a lot of the focus will be on Grisham’s blast, it’s also worth noting that the singles from Austin Nola and Jake Cronenworth that put big runs on the bases for the Padres had an expected batting average of .210 and .180, respectively, as both were dribblers that evaded Colorado’s infield defense.

Bard’s placement of the pitch to Grisham left much to be desired, but that was his true lone mistake of the frame.

The list of bad was small on Monday night, something that has become common for the Rockies when they play at Coors Field. Now Germán Márquez will look to keep Colorado’s dominance in Denver going when he takes the mound on Tuesday night.