MLB

The Colorado Rockies' Offense Stayed Weird and Had a 13-Run Inning on the Road

Jim Sannes  —  @JimSannes May 6th, 2016
The Colorado Rockies scored 13 runs in the fifth inning Thursday as part of a 17-7 romp of the San Francisco Giants, continuing what has already been a strange season for the Rockies' offense.

A'ight, allow me to present all of you with a scenario. A Colorado sports team dropped 13 points in a single frame last night. Without knowing what month it is, what would you guess?

If the Rockies weren't on the tip of your tongue prior to their 17-7 romp of the San Francisco Giants Thursday, don't worry. Their Twitter account never got the memo, either.


I guess that -- of all baseball teams -- the Rockies do make the most sense. After all, they play at Coors Field, where gravity is made up and the pitching doesn't matter. They play 81 games per year there, so you'd think they'd eventually unleash some sauciness on some poor, unsuspecting opponent.

Except it was at AT&T Park, which ranks 28th in park factor and is the worst spot in the league for home runs. Stay weird, baseball.

Trevor Story got the scoring started with a bang, launching a solo shot off of Matt Cain in the top of the fifth inning. Then Carlos Gonzalez doubled. A Brandon Crawford throwing error allowed Nolan Arenado to reach. And after a Gerardo Parra single brought home Gonzalez, Cain's night was done.

It didn't stop there.


All in all, the Rockies sent 17 batters to the dish to total five singles, four doubles, a home run, a walk, and a hit-by-pitch, while the Giants used three different pitchers and committed two errors. Rockies starter Chris Rusin even got in on the action, lining a single to center that brought home both Parra and Mark Reynolds.

To put a cherry on top of this, the Rockies used that game to tie the Giants atop the National League West division standings. Not. Great. Bob.

Perhaps no Giant had a worse night than reliever Vin Mazzaro. He was the guy who relieved Cain, and the Giants dangled him as bait for 10 batters before bringing in Derek Law. On the plus side, he likely made Texas Rangers starter Derek Holland feel better after the Toronto Blue Jays doinked him for 11 runs in 2 2/3 innings.


While we're on the subject of tough nights for pitchers, Rusin didn't even get a win in all of the madness. He was pulled after 4 1/3 innings with seven earned runs to his credit, falling two outs short of being eligible to be the winning pitcher. You're taking the #KillTheWin movement a bit far there, brother.

The Rockies as a team, however, did get that win, bringing them to 14-14 overall on the season. Ten of those 14 wins have come on the road, where they are 10-6, while they are only 4-8 at home. And this offensive explosion away from Coors Field really shouldn't come as too much of a surprise, either, as they have now averaged 5.375 runs per game in their 16 contests on the road. Maybe baseball isn't quite as weird as we thought.

Eventually, you'd expect that the Rockies will normalize and stop terrorizing the scoreboard when they're on the road. They rank 15th in wRC+, which gives a park-factor-neutral measurement of an offense's abilities. Most teams in the middle of the pack aren't averaging more than five runs per game on the road, meaning the Rockies are likely benefiting from a hefty helping of cluster luck. Just don't tell them that, lest you anger the beast and suffer the humiliation that follows.