Rockies display grit and toughness in win over the Royals

Who says spring training games don’t matter? They sure seem like they do to the young Colorado Rockies.

One of the hottest teams in the Cactus League so far, the Rockies sure don’t want to lose, and that winning attitude was on display in a 7-6 win over the Kansas City Royals Wednesday afternoon in Surprise, Arizona.

The win was perhaps the biggest highlight of the day for the Rockies, who used a lineup of several major leaguers and a slew of minor league players in the mid-week game.

Colorado fell behind early on, but, the bats kept the Rockies in the game, and, the Rockies found a way to fend off the charging Royals in the later innings. 

And while the win might seem like a small blip on the sports scene, it once again illustrates Colorado’s approach to this spring. The Rockies are hell-bent on improving, no matter who is in the dugout, and to battle the Royals the way they did speaks volumes to how determined this franchise is to making big improvements in 2025.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt to have some offense, too. And that was on display yet again as Colorado got not one, but two homeruns from newly-aquired Nick Martini. The former Athletics and Cincinnatti outfielder joined the Rockies on a minor league deal in January, and made his presence felt on Wednesday when he belted a solo homer in the second inning and a two-run bomb in the fifth.

For the fifth time in the spring, the Rockies finished with double-digit hits, 13 in all, two of which came from star first basemen Michael Toglia who is off to a red-hot start this spring.

And the Rockies as a whole would like to stay red-hot, because, while the real games aren’t for another month, the fact of the matter is, every time you win a game like Colorado did on Wednesday, it’s going to matter somewhere down the road. And the future is what Colorado is gunning for so, Wednesday was a key day for sure.

The Rockies will square off against the arch rival Dodgers on Thursday at 1:10 p.m. at Salt River Fields.