Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and Jose Herrera homered, and Eduardo Rodriguez pitched a season-high seven innings as the Arizona Diamondbacks rolled past the Colorado Rockies 8-2 on Thursday night in Denver.
The win was Arizona’s sixth in its last seven games, improving them to 9-4 in August, and pulled them within 4 1/2 games of the New York Mets for the final NL wild card spot.
Rodriguez (5-7) was sharp, allowing just one run on six hits, striking out six and walking one. His lone mistake came in the fifth, when Kyle Farmer led off with a solo homer. Farmer finished with three hits, while Brenton Doyle homered in the ninth and Tyler Freeman added two hits for Colorado.
Arizona jumped on Rockies starter Bradley Blalock (1-4) early. After Geraldo Perdomo walked to start the game and Corbin Carroll drew another free pass, Gurriel launched a three-run homer – his 15th of the season – into the bullpen. In the second, Alek Thomas singled, and Herrera followed with a two-run shot over the right-field scoreboard, his second of the year.
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The Diamondbacks struck again in the fourth. Herrera walked, Perdomo singled, and Ketel Marte doubled off the wall in right to drive in two more runs, chasing Blalock after just 3 2/3 innings. He allowed seven runs on six hits and four walks without recording a strikeout.Arizona’s final run came in the seventh, when Carroll doubled home Perdomo. Perdomo and Thomas each had two hits, while Carroll and Marte added key RBIs.The Rockies, who had their two-game winning streak snapped, have dropped eight of ten meetings with Arizona this season. Farmer’s and Doyle’s homers were Colorado’s only extra-base hits in the opener of the four-game set.