Game Recap: Rockies walk off Cubs to avoid sweep

Ron Chenoy - USA Today Sports

Dustin Riese · Senior Writer · 5 hours ago

DENVER - When the Chicago Cubs (78-59) embarked on this massive nine-game West Coast Trip, the goal was for them to finish 6-3 and potentially 7-2 when you look at the matchups. Despite getting swept by the San Francisco Giants in the middle series, the Cubs still had an opportunity to come away with a 6-3 trip as they closed out their series finale with the Colorado Rockies (39-98) Sunday afternoon at Coors Field.

Already with their first series win in Colorado in a decade, the Cubs turned to one of their best in Matthew Boyd as he was looking to get back on track after two consecutive rough outings. As good as Boyd has been this season, and the numbers will back that up, he is starting to run into a bit of a late-season rough patch, and you have to wonder if the high amount of innings has begun to take its toll on someone who has struggled to stay healthy.

With their offense being held in check most of the day, it was an Ian Happ three-run shot in the eighth that tied things up and brought new life to what was otherwise a dormant Cubs offense. However, all that life quickly went out the window as Daniel Palencia blew his second game in three tries on this trip as Mickey Moniak came through with a massive RBI triple in the ninth to walk off the Cubs 6-5 as the Rockies avoided the sweep.

For Boyd, you are starting to see the early signs of fatigue as he hasn't been as sharp in his past few outings as he was earlier in the season. Sure, Boyd still gave the Cubs six innings of one walk, five strikeouts, but with four runs allowed, he has now allowed four runs or more in three straight starts after doing that just three times the entire season.

Compare that to Tanner Gordon, who picked a great time to have his best start of the season, and you can see why the runs were challenging to come by for the Cubs most of the day. Gordon entered the game with an ERA north of 6.00 and with six strong innings of two-run, nine-strikeout baseball; his ERA remains above six, but has fallen to 6.07.

For the second straight day, runs were at a premium in the early innings as the Cubs had the lone hit through two innings, coming on a Kyle Tucker first-inning double. It was in the third when both offenses started to get rolling, and it happened to come on the second time through the order. Matt Shaw got things rolling for the Cubs with a leadoff single to begin the third, only to advance to second two hitters later on the Michael Busch single.

Gordon came close to avoiding any damage at all, only to have Seiya Suzuki come through with a massive two-out two RBI double that had the Cubs in front 2-0. Anytime you give Boyd the lead, the chances that Chicago wins the game significantly increase, but you got a sense immediately in the bottom of the third that it would take more than two runs to get the job done.

After retiring the first six hitters he faced, Colorado put an end to that quickly as Braxton Fulford led off the bottom of the third with a double before advancing to third on an Orlando Arcia single. Two batters later, and this was a 2-1 game as Tyler Freeman kept the line moving with another single. Boyd did his best to get through the third, but once again it was the Rockies finding a way to get things done as Brenton Doyle added another single to bring things back to even 2-2.

That was only the start for Boyd and his struggles as the Rockies' offense got right back to work in the bottom of the fourth, using a two-out Kyle Farmer walk to start a massive two-out rally. For the second time in as many at-bats, the Fulford and Arcia duo came through with Fulford delivering an RBI triple to put the Rockies in front, only to have Arcia add an RBI single to make this a 4-2 game.

Boyd would allow just one base runner the rest of the way, but with Gordon locked in as much as he has been, through five innings, four runs were looking to be more than enough for the Rockies. In his final inning on the mound, the Cubs started to get some better looks off him with Tucker leading things off with a single, only to have Pete Crow-Armstrong work a two-out walk to move another runner into scoring position. Gordon made sure those runners would stay put as the Cubs failed to get the big hit and continued to trail.

In what was now a battle of the bullpens to begin the seventh, Craig Counsell chose to go with Porter Hodge in the bottom half of the inning, as he had recently been re-added to the roster. Despite his overall struggles at the MLB level this season, Hodge has been on quite a roll in AAA, striking out more than 40% of the hitters he has faced in August while not giving up a run.

Unfortunately for him, as has been the case all season, his AAA success hasn't translated over to the MLB level as the Rockies used a pair of hits and a walk to start the seventh, loading the bases with no outs. To Hodge's credit, he did a great job minimizing the damage, but a run still managed to score as Doyle picked up a sacrifice fly to put the Rockies in front 5-2.

Down by three and only six outs to go, the Cubs haven't had much luck coming from behind since the all-star break, but this is Colorado, and as fans have seen, no lead is safe here. Take the top of the eighth, for example, as the Cubs instantly had something going off Luis Peralta, as a leadoff walk to Michael Busch was followed by a Tucker single to put a pair of runners on.

Two batters later came arguably the biggest swing of the day for either side as the suddenly hot Happ unloaded for a massive three-run shot to take what was a 5-2 Rockies lead and turned this into a 5-5 game as the Cubs now had all the momentum. After a clean eighth inning from Caleb Thielbar, who was on the mound for what seemed like the first time in a week, the Cubs went down in order to begin the ninth, putting the pressure on Palencia to take care of the Rockies and send this into extras.

Palencia has been great more often than not this season, but over the past three weeks, the results haven't been as good, as he is not only giving up more hits but also allowing a lot of hard contact. That continued in this one with Ryan Ritter starting things off with a single before coming home on the Moniak triple as the Rockies walked off the Cubs 6-5.

With the loss, the Cubs close out August with a 9-5 record over their final 14 games, still coming away with a winning month as they return home to face the Atlanta Braves on Monday afternoon.