Eugenio Suarez has enjoyed his weekend so far in Colorado, and so have his Arizona Diamondbacks teammates.
Suarez has clubbed three home runs to lead Arizona to wins in the first two games of the series, and the Diamondbacks go for the sweep of the Rockies on Sunday afternoon in Denver.
Arizona will send Brandon Pfaadt (8-4, 5.38 ERA) against the Rockies’ Antonio Senzatela (2-10, 6.72) in a matchup of right-handers.
The first two games of the series have played out as typical Coors Field contests — plenty of home runs and scoring. The D-backs smacked four homers in Friday night’s 14-8 win and hit two more in the 5-3 victory on Saturday.
Colorado also has been finding the seats; it has three home runs in the two games.
Suarez has been one of the hitting stars for Arizona. His two homers on Friday were his 299th and 300th of his career, and he added another on Saturday night. He joins Miguel Cabrera (511) and Andres Galarraga (399) as the only Venezuelan-born players to reach the 300-homer plateau in the majors.
“It means a lot. I never thought this guy from Venezuela would put my name on that list,” said Suarez, 33. “It’s very special. It’s very good. It feels like a dream come true.”
Suarez isn’t the only D-backs player having a banner weekend. Ketel Marte is 7-for-10 with three doubles and six RBIs in the first two games of the series.
Pfaadt hopes Arizona’s bats stay hot for his first career start at Coors Field. He has faced the Rockies three times, all at home, and is 2-0 with a 4.60 ERA in 15 2/3 innings in those starts.
Senzatela has much more experience against Sunday’s opponent. The burly right-hander has faced the D-backs 22 times in his career — 18 starts — and is 3-9 with a 5.73 ERA in those outings. He will make his 10th home start against them where he is 1-3 with a 5.74 ERA.
He will try to stop Colorado’s three-game skid and avoid being swept for the 12th time this season. The Rockies’ current slide has kept them on pace to have the most losses in a season in the modern era, which is 121 set by the Chicago White Sox in 2024.
Colorado, which was shut out eight times in the first 50 games of the season, has been better offensively in June. The Rockies have been held to just one run twice in 19 games and are averaging 4.79 runs a game in that stretch.
They missed opportunities Saturday night by going just 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position.
“(Friday) night we scored eight runs, we scored a bunch of runs on the road, so it’s been trending better overall,” interim manager Warren Schaeffer said after Saturday night’s loss. “Overall, hitting with runners in scoring position has been better.”
One player taking advantage of his opportunities is Tyler Freeman. He is hitting .362 over his last 15 games and has two hits in each of the games against Arizona this weekend.
–Field Level Media
