Amid a lost season, the Rockies’ best pitcher and best position player carried Colorado to victory on Wednesday night in Oakland.
Austin Gomber carved up the Athletics, throwing eight innings of one-run ball while continuing to look the part of Colorado’s ace. Then, Ryan McMahon — making a strong case for his first all-star nod — blasted the game-winning, two-run homer in the 12th for a 4-3 victory at the Oakland Coliseum.
“(Gomber) was brilliant,” Rockies manager Bud Black told reporters. “Changing speeds, confidence, ball-strike ratio off the charts, no walks, quick innings early, efficient. Eight innings — you don’t see that a lot in today’s game.”
After Charlie Blackmon’s single to open the game in front of a sparse crowd, Elias Diaz gave the Rockies a 2-0 lead with his two-out, two-run, 401-foot homer to center off Oakland right-hander Mitch Spence.
With that buffer, Gomber set the first 10 Oakland batters down, and was on cruise control until center fielder JJ Bleday’s solo homer to right-center put the A’s on the board and cut the score to 2-1.
But that proved to be just a blip for Gomber, who quickly settled back in to steer the Rockies to snapping a four-game slide.
The southpaw entered the game with a sparkling 0.48 ERA in three May starts, and he continued that recent trend of domination throughout the game. It’s the version of Gomber the Rockies believed they were getting when they acquired the southpaw as the centerpiece of the trade for Nolan Arenado ahead of the 2021 season.
Gomber set the A’s down in order in the fifth and the sixth before working around a pair of singles in the seventh. After setting Oakland down in order again in the eighth, Gomber was at just 90 pitches, but Black elected to go to the bullpen.
“I think at that point, it was time to make the change, and he felt so too,” Black said.
The southpaw lowered his overall ERA to 2.76 with the outing, the latest stellar showing as Gomber continues to be a bright spot in the Rockies’ rough season. He and right-hander Cal Quantrill have carried Colorado’s rotation.
Gomber allowed five hits, with no walks, six strikeouts and 10 groundball outs. He located his fastball and was also effective with his knuckle-curve and changeup, inducing 12 swing-and-misses overall.
Colorado Rockies pitcher Austin Gomber reacts after Oakland Athletics’ Tyler Nevin lined out to end the seventh inning of a baseball game in Oakland, Calif., Wednesday, May 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
A day after the Colorado bullpen blew the game in a 5-4 Oakland win in the series opener, southpaw Jalen Beeks came on looking for his fifth save of the season. But Beeks allowed a single to Brent Rooker and then walked Khris Davis with two outs, leading to Zack Gelof’s line drive single to center over the outstretched glove of a leaping Brendan Rodgers at second base.
That tied the game 2-2, but Beeks averted giving away the game completely by getting Colorado’s first-round pick from 2015, Tyler Nevin, to fly out to right field to force extras.
Beeks’ walk of Davis on four pitches to extend Oakland’s inning and pave the way for Gelof’s game-tying single underscored a continued troubling trend for the Rockies bullpen, which ranked last in the majors with a 12.2% walk rate entering the game.
In the 10th, the Rockies failed to score their California runner, pinch-runner Alan Trejo, after Rodgers grounded out to right-hander Lucas Erceg, Kris Bryant K’d and then Brenton Doyle also grounded out to Erceg.
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Victor Vodnik came on to pitch the bottom half of the inning, and with his heater consistently sitting at 100 miles per hour, the right-hander stranded the game-winning run on third base to take the game to the 11th.
Colorado’s offense flailed again in that frame, as right-hander Austin Adams struck out the side in Jordan Beck, Hunter Goodman and Jake Cave to leave Doyle standing on second. But right-hander Nick Mears matched that feat in the bottom of the 11th, fanning the Oakland side.
Finally, McMahon allowed Colorado to break through in the 12th with his towering, 401-foot homer to right-center. The Rockies were 1 for 14 with runners in scoring position at that point, with Colorado’s previous hit in that situation being Diaz’s first-inning homer.
McMahon’s ninth homer of the year, and his third straight game with a dinger, made it 4-2.
“We bookend two-run homers — Diaz in the first and Mac in the 12th,” Black said. “We had a lot of chances in-between, left a lot of guys out there (with 14 left on base).”
The A’s got one back off Mears in the bottom of the inning, but Mears induced a key double-play before Matt Koch got Max Schuemann to fly out to end the game. It was the first 12-plus inning game for Colorado since July 22, 2022 (a 6-5 loss in Milwaukee), and the Rockies’ first win in a 12-plus inning game since the season finale in 2019 (a 4-3 win over the Brewers in Denver).
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