Ivan Herrera crushed a 430-foot, three-run homer in the top of the ninth to help the Cardinals rally past the Rockies 7-6 at Coors Field on Friday night. With the win, the Cards pulled within three games of the final Wild Card spot in the National League playoff chase.
Down to potentially their final two outs and staring at possibly a second straight frustrating loss, Ivan Herrera helped the Cardinals pull off a shocking ninth-inning rally for the fifth time this season.
Batting with runners at second and third following a walk, a stolen base and a fielding error by the Rockies, Herrera launched a 430-foot, game-turning, three-run homer in the ninth inning to rescue the Cardinals in a 7-6 victory at Coors Field.
Herrera's 15th homer of the season propelled the Cardinals into the lead into a game they once led 4-1 before coming unglued in a four-run sixth inning for the Rockies. Herrera hit a center-cut slider from Rockies closer Jordan Romano, and the ball left his bat at a scorching 103.5 mph. The smash plated Thomas Saggese -- who started the rally with a walk and a stolen base -- and Jose Fermin, who had reached on a throwing error by Rockies third baseman Connor Norby. Herrera finished 2 for 5 with three RBI.
A night after blowing his sixth save of the season in a 3-2 loss to the Dodgers, Cards' closer Riley O'Brien pitched a scoreless ninth for his National League-best 36th save of the season. Cardinals' manager Oliver Marmol said that the team wanted to rest O'Brien on Friday night, but the All-Star closer requested to pitch if his team nabbed the lead.
The Cardinals didn't get to their downtown Denver hotel until 4:30 a.m. following the loss in Los Angeles on Thursday night, but they still had plenty of energy late agains the Rockies.
"We just fight, and regardless of the score or how the game is going, we're going to fight until the end," said O'Brien, who secured the game ball for rookie Cade Winquest (1-0) following his first MLB win. "I think we showed that (fight) tonight."
The Cardinals (71-71) pulled back to within three games of the final Wild Card spot in the NL playoff race. They moved to 23-23 in one-run games, with those 46 instances trailing only the Dodgers' 50 one-run games.
Cardinals' rookie right-hander Hancel Rincon, who entered the game for his MLB debut and the Cardinals leading by three runs, struggled in an ugly sixth inning that featured plenty of loud contact and loud arguments between Marmol and home plate umpire Doug Eddings. After seven batters in the sixth, Rincon was out of the game, Marmol had been ejected, Eddings whiffed on a call at the plate and the Rockies had zipped into the lead in a debut that went wrong on a lot of levels.
Colorado scored four times on five hits in the sixth inning, and it tacked on a 441-foot homer from TJ Rumsfield in the seventh inning.
The Cardinals led 4-1 after scoring twice in the second inning and two more times in the fifth inning – one of them coming on Jordan Walker’s career-best 100th RBI of the season.
Andre Pallante, who was pitching for the first time since Aug. 17 following a stint on the Injured List with right elbow inflammation, limited the Rockies to two hits and one earned run over five innings of work. He walked four and struck out one but pitched out of trouble in the second and third innings after surrendering a first-inning run.
The Cardinals saw their three-run advantage evaporate when the Rockies hit for the cycle as a team in the sixth inning – with three of the hits coming off Rincon, who had been 6-6 with a 4.03 ERA in 42 appearances with Triple-A Memphis. Rumfield tripled off the wall in right field – a play where the Cardinals challenged the call and lost replays showed the ball popping out of Nolan Gorman’s glove. That would prove big later in the sixth inning when the Cardinals didn’t have a challenge remaining to get a second look on a call at home.
Cole Carigg followed with an inside-the-park home run when center fielder Nathan Church got too close to the wall on a drive that left the bat at 103.1 mph and traveled 408 feet in the Mile High thin air.
Rincon was pulled after a single by Connor Norby, but things didn’t get much better for the Cards after veteran lefty Justin Bruihl came on in relief. Marmol argued with Eddings, who stopped the game in the sixth inning to instruct Rincon to straighten his hat after a wild pitch. And when Eddings hit Bruihl with a pitch timer violation following the argument, Marmol was ejected for the 25th time in his career.
"Some words were exchanged there and, quite honestly, I thought it was pretty embarrassing on (Eddings') end," Marmol said to Cardinals TV. "We have a kid making his debut and in between an at bat (Eddings) tells (Rincon) to fix his hat and 'the kid's not going to wear his hat like that on my field.' So, I told him, 'The last I checked this is Coors Field,' I took issue with it and then the pitch timer violation while I'm out there having a discussion, that's also stupid, in my opinion.
"So, there's a lot of moving parts to that one. At the end of the day, I thought they handled it poorly and I'd like an explanation (from the league office) at some point."
Troy Johnston followed with a double, and Adael Adamdor tied the game with a line drive single to right field. No. 9 hitter Zac Veen then laid down a bunt that Bruihl shoveled to catcher Leo Bernal, who appeared to tag Johnston on the left forearm before touching home plate. However, because the Cardinals had already used their challenge, they couldn’t go to the monitors for a second look at the play that led to the go-ahead run for the Rockies.
Rincon, 24, was charged with two earned runs, while Bruihl was tagged for two more runs.
