Spilborghs' hit delivers 11th-inning victory for Rockies

By Jack Etkin, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published July 3, 2008 at 9:36 p.m.

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Photo by David Zalubowski © AP

Colorado Ryan Spilborghs, left, celebrates with teammate Jeff Baker after Spilborghs drove in the tying and winning runs with a single off Marlins closer Kevin Gregg in the 11th inning of the Rockies 6-5 win Thursday night at Coors Field. Before Spilborghs' hit Baker had driven in all the Rockies runs Thursday, half of his four RBI coming on a two-run homer in the second inning.

Photo by Doug Pensinger © Getty

Colorado's Jeff Baker is greeted at home by Garrett Atkins, left, after Baker hit a two-run home run in the second inning of the Rockies game against Florida on Thursday night at Coors Field.

After giving up the go-ahead run in the top of the 11th inning Thursday, a dejected Matt Herges returned to the Rockies dugout, where he was greeted by Ryan Spilborghs.

"He's like, 'We'll get a win for you right here,' " Herges said.

Spilborghs made good on that vow. His two-run single with one out in the bottom of the inning off Florida closer Kevin Gregg gave the Rockies a 6-5 victory over the Marlins before 48,084, a sellout crowd exceeded this season only by 49,233 on Opening Day.

It was the Rockies' third straight win and their first in a series opener since June 17, breaking a string of four consecutive losses to begin a series.

This was the first meeting with the Marlins since Sept. 16. On that Sunday afternoon at Coors Field, the Rockies blasted Florida 13-0 and began their magical 21-1 sprint to the World Series.

Those days seem long ago in this wayward season. Yet, Thursday's victory included grit - the Rockies tied the score in the eighth after Taylor Buchholz improbably gave up a two-run homer in the top of the inning and won it in the 11th - combined with opportunism - Gregg set up the winning rally with a throwing error - resulting in an all-hands- on-deck victory reminiscent of last fall.

"This is something to build on," Herges said. "This is a big win. We came back twice. I hate talking about last year, but that's what we did last year. We picked each other up. That's the kind of game we won all the time last year, and it's what we can do."

"If there's ever such a thing as a spark, this should be it," Spilborghs said.

Jeff Baker drove in the Rockies' first four runs, setting a single-game season high in that category. He hit a two-run homer in the second that tied the score 2-2, put the Rockies ahead 3-2 in the sixth on a groundout and tied the score 4-4 with a sacrifice fly in the eighth after Buchholz gave up his first home run since Aug. 28 at San Francisco, a span of 43 appearances and 48 innings.

Mark Redman, replacing injured Jeff Francis in the rotation, made a successful return to the Rockies. Pitching on three instead of four days' rest, he gave up two runs in the second on three hits, two of them flares and the third a line drive off the glove of first baseman Baker.

Redman, who threw 59 of 88 pitches for strikes, retired 11 of the final 14 batters he faced, getting two of his three inning-ending double-play grounders in the process in his first appearance with the Rockies since

May 6. In the interim, Redman retooled at Triple-A Colorado Springs, where he won his past three starts and allowed four earned runs in 18 innings.

"I worked real hard with (Sky Sox pitching coach) Chuck Kniffen down there on my direction toward the plate," Redman said. "And we figured out some things and simplified some things to allow that line to go straight instead of going across my body."

Redman said getting demoted "was tough" and said there were times he wanted to give up. He credited his wife, Brandi, "because she kept me accountable and pushed me and was there to support me. Honestly, I couldn't have done it without her because there were so many times I was like, 'What am I doing?' "

The same question could have been asked of the Rockies when they botched a sacrifice attempt in the ninth and led off the fifth, sixth, ninth, 10th and 11th innings with walks before hitting pay dirt.

Gregg, who was 15-for-19 in save opportunities with six wins, walked Yorvit Torrealba to open the 11th and threw wildly after fielding Scott Podsednik's sacrifice bunt. A walk to Troy Tulowitzki loaded the bases for pinch hitter Omar Quintanilla.

With Todd Helton (lower back) and Willy Taveras (left quadriceps) unavailable, manager Clint Hurdle had a three-man bench, four with pitcher Aaron Cook, who pinch hit.

Quintanilla fell into an 0-2 hole but grounded into a forceout at the plate on a 10-pitch at-bat. Spilborghs also fell behind 0-2 before lashing Gregg's seventh pitch into the gap in left-center field to win the game. The victory improved the Rockies to 3-5 in extra-inning games and 2-3 at home.

"I'm glad that our want-to didn't go away," Hurdle said. "Our how-to was bouncing around every now and then, but our want-to never left us."

• July 4, 2008

  12:48 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  avsfan8 writes:

  I don't think it's too late to lose hope yet...It sure looks bad in the standings for the moment but it's not like the team is terrible or anything.

  I mean...they're really only 2 1/2 games away from the same spot they were last year at the All-Star break which was 5 1/2 games out of 1st. And we all know with joy what happened last year.

  It would really only take a few good games and a more consistent pattern of winning (duh?) to make the Rox a serious threat in the NL West.

  I love the Rockies now, they aren't the bunch of predictable losers that they were for most of my childhood, they can actually win exciting games nowadays or at least make the games they lose exciting (like the one that got away against the Tigers last week).

  We'll see...

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