DENVER — It’s the summer blockbuster season, and the Yankees and Rockies delivered an action-packed thriller Sunday afternoon at Coors Field in front of a sold-out crowd of 47,211 fans.
In the end, the Rockies had more superheroes than the Yankees and won the game 8-7 on Alan Trejo’s unlikely walk-off homer in the 11th inning off Ron Marinaccio. It was not only Trejo’s first walk-off homer of his career, it was his first home run this season, and it clinched the three-game series against New York.
Trejo’s homer — his first in 134 at-bats — silenced the hordes of fans shouting “Let’s Go Yankees!” All three games on the series were sellouts and New York fans turned Coors into Yankee Stadium West.
“This is like a storybook ending, right?” Trejo said. “This is a walk-off against the Yankees, and that’s something I’m going to talk about for the rest of my life. And it was such a good game, back-and-forth, so it made it even more special.”
Three batters prior, rookie outfielder Nolan Jones hit a game-tying two-run homer off Nick Ramirez.
“To have an opportunity to come up in the bottom of the 11th and put a good swing on the ball feels really good,” Jones said. “They had kind of pitched me the same way the whole series, so I was kind of looking for something hard inside. I got something over the plate and I got a pretty good swing on it.”
Yes, he did. His seventh homer of the season traveled 450 feet to center.
And don’t forget about Colorado designated hitter C.J. Cron. He blasted a grand slam off Clay Holmes in the eighth inning to put the Rockies ahead, 5-3.
“I’ve been trying to get my timing back and I know it’s coming and it’s going to get even better,” said Cron, who also hit a home run Saturday in Colorado’s 6-3 loss to the Yankees, marking the first time he hit homers in back-to-back games since Sept. 9-10 vs. Arizona.
But the Rockies couldn’t hold the lead.
New York scored twice in the ninth off Daniel Bard, capitalizing on Ryan McMahon’s second costly throwing error of the game. Bard plunked Billy McKinney to lead off the inning and McMahon, trying to make a big-time play on Gleyber Torres’ slow roller, threw the ball away, allowing McKinney to score. Two more walks by Bard — one intentional — set up a game-tying sacrifice fly by Harrison Bader.
Before all of the late-game drama, Colorado received five scoreless innings from starter Chase Anderson and a solo home run from first baseman Michael Toglia, and New York received a six-inning, two-hit, 11-strikeout performance from ace Gerrit Cole.
Colorado led 1-0 entering the sixth inning when reliever Jake Bird was victimized by a pair of one-out, seeing-eye singles by DJ LeMahieu and Bader. Isiah Kiner-Falefa then hit an RBI single up the middle to score LeMahieu, and center fielder Brenton Doyle threw to McMahon, trying to cut down Bader.
Bader easily beat the throw, and McMahon fired toward first base, trying to catch Harrison-Falefa off the bag. The problem was, there was no one there except Yankees first base coach Travis Chapman because first baseman Toglia had moved to a cutoff position near the mound. McMahon acknowledged that he briefly spied Chapman, thinking it was Toglia. McMahon knew he had made a mistake in the middle of his throw.
McMahon’s two-base throwing error scored Bader and allowed Kiner-Falefa to scoot to third. Kiner-Falefa scored on Anthony Volpe’s groundout to shortstop Ezequiel Tovar. Tovar was prepared to throw home but he bobbled the ball and was forced to throw to first instead.
