DENVER — Rockies Report, Game 124:

ROCKIES BOTTOM LINE: Another day, another comeback.

Reliever Juan Mejia’s lunging grab of a Ketel Marte infield pop-up as he collided with Warming Bernabel with two on and two out allowed the Rockies to withstand an Arizona ninth-inning rally to preserve Colorado’s comeback from a 4-1 deficit for a 6-5 win in front of 22,895 at Coors Field on a toasty Sunday afternoon.

Mejia, asked to close the game after Victor Vodnik saved four of the previous five games during the Rockies’ recent upturn, allowed three-straight singles and a sacrifice fly to put the Rockies’ series-clinching win in jeopardy. But he chased down Marte’s pop-up and held on despite hitting Bernabel with a force that might have been harder than anything at Denver Broncos training camp.

Hey @NFL give this man a call. pic.twitter.com/4rUSndQfqM

— Colorado Rockies (@Rockies) August 17, 2025

“Probably a lack of communication, if I’m being honest,” interim manager Warren Schaeffer admitted in his postgame press conference after the game.

All parties appeared to emerge unscathed, and the catch despite the collision ensured that the Rockies’ late-inning comeback would be enough for the win. It also ensured that the somewhat surprising choice to pitch to Marte paid off.

For a second-consecutive day, the Rockies battered Arizona’s beleaguered bullpen.

Trailing 4-1 heading into the seventh inning after the Diamondbacks lit up relievers Luis Peralta and Dugan Darnell in the sixth with five-consecutive hits — including back-to-back home runs to lead off the inning at Peralta’s expense — the Rockies worked the bases loaded on a Warming Bernabel single and the wildness of Arizona reliever Mike Woodford.

Woodford plunked Braxton Fulford and Hunter Goodman, the latter of whom worked as a pinch hitter Sunday. That loaded the bases, and three subsequent singles — including 2-RBI singles from Ryan Ritter and Mickey Moniak — would put Colorado in front.

Fulford tacked an insurance run onto the lead when he lined an RBI double over the head of Arizona left fielder Jake McCarthy, who misjudged the ball coming off Fulford’s bat and misplayed it, scoring Warming Bernabel from first base.

Colorado initially eked in front in the fifth inning, turning Nabil Crismatt’s one-out walk of Brenton Doyle into a 1-0 lead. Doyle stole second, then scored the game’s first run on Orlando Arcia’s two-out line-drive single, sliding home to beat Corbin Carroll’s throw.

But that lead vanished within four pitches in the sixth after Peralta relieved Antonio Senzatela, who threw five shutout innings in his return from the injured list.

Colorado took the series by winning three of four games and has now won five of six after losing eight-consecutive games. The Rockies are 35-89.

ROCKIES STARTER’S REPORT

When Antonio Senzatela has been effective this year — and unfortunately for the Rockies, those moments haven’t been as frequent as he or the team would hope — he’s had to navigate his way out of difficulty and through heavy traffic on the base paths.

This start was no different, and his first-inning woes nearly put the Rox into a canyon, as Blaze Alexander and Corbin Carroll’s back-to-back singles put runners on the corners with one out. But Ezequiel Tovar’s stab of Lourdes Gurriel Jr.’s 0-1 line drive kept the game scoreless with two outs, and then Senzatela got the ground ball he needed to escape.

Senzatela wouldn’t encounter real trouble again until the fifth inning, when he yielded a leadoff single to Alek Thomas. But after a two-out intentional walk to Geraldo Perdomo, he struck out Alexander to complete an efficient, 61-pitch day.

Schaeffer noted that Senzatela’s limit was 75 pitches.

Sadly for Senzatela, he lost the win four pitches after Peralta relieved him. Peralta placed a 94-MPH fastball in the dead center of the strike zone, and Carroll deposited it 474 feet into the second level of the right-field stands above the Rockies bullpen.

“He attacked the strike zone; he used his off-speed stuff,” Schaeffer said.

BITS AND PIECES

IT WAS DECIDED FOR THE ROCKIES WHEN: Mejia withstood the collision with Bernabel holding the baseball in his glove.

NUMBERS TO NOTE: 9-7 — Colorado’s home record since the All-Star break. The Rockies were 10-36 at home prior to that point in the season.

WHAT’S NEXT: The Los Angeles Dodgers and Yoshinobu Yamamoto for the first game of a four-game series. Kyle Freeland starts for the Rockies in Monday night’s series opener. First pitch at Coors Field will be at 6:40 p.m. MDT.