Austin Gomber logged six strong innings and C.J. Cron finished a triple shy of the cycle as the Colorado Rockies defeated the Arizona Diamondbacks 12-4 in Denver on Sunday afternoon to prevent being swept in a three-game series.
Gomber (2-4) surrendered just one run on three hits while walking two and fanning four to notch his second straight victory. Cron led the offensive charge by going 3-for-5 with four RBIs and two runs.
Harold Castro also had three hits while Charlie Blackmon, Elias Diaz, Randal Grichuk and Ezequiel Tovar each added two for Colorado, which snapped a three-game losing streak and won for just the fourth time in its last 18 games.
Evan Longoria smacked his third homer of the season and Emmanuel Rivera and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. both laced RBI doubles for Arizona, which had won four of its previous five games entering Sunday. Dominic Fletcher also had a double for his first major league hit.
Longoria opened the scoring in the top of the second by blasting a fastball 463 feet to left for a 1-0 Arizona lead, but the Rockies dominated from there.
After tying the game in the home half of the frame on Mike Moustakas’ RBI groundout, Colorado went up 5-1 in the third thanks to Cron’s three-run homer and Moustakas’ RBI single. Blackmon added a sacrifice fly an inning later to up the Rockies’ lead to five.
Diamondbacks starter Ryne Nelson (1-2) didn’t return for the fifth after allowing six runs on nine hits in four innings. He walked one and struck out two.
Grichuk, Castro and Tovar led off the sixth with consecutive doubles before Ryan McMahon’s RBI groundout and Cron’s run-scoring single made it 10-1.
Colorado tacked on two more runs in the seventh when Moustakas scored on Castro’s single and Grichuk scored on Blackmon’s double.
It wasn’t until the eighth that Arizona rediscovered its offense, as Fletcher, Rivera and Gurriel doubled in succession with one out to pull the visitors within 12-3. Alek Thomas’ RBI single in the ninth forged the final score.
–Field Level Media