The Rockies hung around for most of Thursday night at Yankee Stadium.
Then the seventh inning happened.
Colorado had just pulled within two runs when the Yankees answered with six in the bottom half, capped by Anthony Volpe’s grand slam, and turned a quiet, almost competitive game into a 10-3 rout.
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The loss completed a three-game sweep and dropped the Rockies to 55-91, while New York improved to 84–62. John Schreiber earned the win for the Yankees, while Ryan Feltner fell to 5-10.
For much of the night, though, the final score did not match the feel of the game. The Yankees grabbed an early lead, but Feltner settled in, Colorado kept finding small openings and New York never quite put the game away.
Until they did.
Feltner digs a hole, then settles in
Feltner’s first two innings looked like they might lead to another short night.
Ben Rice opened the first with a single and advanced on a wild pitch before Luis García Jr. crushed a two-out changeup for his 30th home run of the season.
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There were flashes of good stuff mixed into the trouble. Feltner struck out Cody Bellinger on a well-sequenced first-inning plate appearance, leaning on his changeup to finish him on a foul tip.
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The command, particularly with the fastball, was much less consistent.
That carried into the second. Ryan McMahon singled, Austin Wells walked and recently recalled Anthony Volpe flicked an inside fastball into left field to score McMahon. Rice followed with a groundout that advanced both runners, and Bellinger’s sacrifice fly stretched the lead to 4-1.
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Feltner needed 46 pitches to get through the first two innings.
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Then, almost abruptly, he settled in.
He worked a nine-pitch, 1-2-3 third and followed with another clean inning in the fourth. After Volpe’s RBI single in the second, Feltner retired 10 consecutive Yankees before Bellinger finally broke the streak with a double in the fifth.
Even that nearly became an out.
Bellinger lifted a towering drive to right, where Jordan Beck tracked it all the way to the wall and leapt with his glove over the fence. Beck caught the ball, but his collision with the wall knocked it loose and back onto the field. Instead of a home run, Bellinger settled for a double.
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Feltner made the play matter. He struck out Jasson Domínguez and got García to pop out in foul territory, ending his night by retiring 12 of the final 13 hitters he faced.
His final line — 5.0 IP, 6 H, 4 ER, 1 BB, 2 K — looks fairly pedestrian, but the outing had two very different halves.
Feltner’s four-seam fastball averaged 93.9 mph, about a tick below his season average, and the Yankees hit it hard when they put it in play. He also struggled to consistently locate it.
The secondaries gave him a way through it.
Feltner used his changeup 18% of the time, exactly in line with his season usage, and generated three whiffs on nine swings. The slider was arguably his best pitch, generating three whiffs on seven swings while avoiding hard contact.
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He did not suddenly become dominant after the second inning. The Yankees continued to hit some balls hard, including a 109.7 mph flyout from Spencer Jones in the third.
What changed was Feltner’s efficiency.
His pitch counts by inning went 25, 21, 9, 17 and 11. Once he stopped fighting the zone, he let the defense work and gave the Rockies five innings after an opening that looked headed somewhere much worse.
The Rockies make Fried work, but little else
Max Fried was much better, although Colorado did make him work for it.
Connor Norby battled through a nine-pitch plate appearance in the first and appeared to earn a walk before Wells challenged the pitch. ABS overturned the call, turning ball four into strike three. Hunter Goodman then chased a curveball well below the zone to end the inning.
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That curveball was good all night.
Fried threw it 19% of the time, above his season rate, and generated four whiffs on five swings. He also leaned heavily on his cutter while largely shelving the four-seam fastball.
Kyle Karros did punish one of those four-seamers in the second, crushing it for his 11th home run of the season and Colorado’s first hit of the game.
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The Rockies otherwise did most of their damage to Fried’s pitch count rather than the scoreboard.
Beck walked to lead off the third and reached third when Norby got aboard on McMahon’s throwing error, but Goodman grounded into a forceout to end the threat. TJ Rumfield worked a seven-pitch walk to start the fourth, and Cole Carrigg extended his at-bat before Fried buried a curveball in the dirt for the strikeout.
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Aaron Boone had already visited the mound. After Carrigg struck out, he went to the bullpen.
Fried finished with 3.1 IP, 1 H, 1 ER, 2 BB and 7 K, but needed 80 pitches to get there.
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It was a peculiar sort of success for Colorado. They made an excellent pitcher labor.
They just did not score.
Colorado finally finds a spark
That problem followed the Rockies into the Yankees bullpen.
Carrigg doubled with two outs in the sixth, but another successful Yankees ABS challenge turned an apparent ball four to Karros into strike three and ended the inning.
Colorado finally broke through again in the seventh.
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Adael Amador worked a seven-pitch at-bat before grounding out, then Beck lined a 98.9 mph drive to center that Jones chased down with a sliding catch.
Tovar kept the inning alive with a two-out walk.
Boone went to Brent Headrick, and McCarthy jumped the first pitch he saw, driving it off the wall in right-center. Tovar scored from first and McCarthy raced into third with his ninth triple of the season.
Suddenly, it was 4-2.
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Norby followed with a six-pitch walk, bringing Goodman to the plate with two on and the tying run involved.
Goodman managed only a weak fly to left.
It was another opening.
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And another missed opportunity.
The seventh finally breaks it open
Zach Agnos had already escaped trouble in the sixth.
Jones singled, Wells walked and Volpe reached on a hard one-hopper that Tovar did well simply to knock down. The bases were loaded, but Carrigg tracked Rice’s deep fly to the warning track to end the inning.
Agnos came back out for the seventh, and the traffic finally caught up with him.
Bellinger doubled to open the inning. Domínguez walked. The two then executed a double steal, putting both runners in scoring position with nobody out.
García grounded to Rumfield at first and both runners held, giving Agnos a chance to escape.
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Jones erased it with his third hit of the night, lining a single up the middle to score both runners. Carrigg came up firing from center, but his throw sailed over Goodman and reached the backstop as Jones advanced to second.
The Yankees led 6-2.
Agnos got Lombard to pop out, then walked McMahon.
Warren Schaeffer had seen enough.
Jimmy Herget entered and immediately walked Wells to load the bases.
Then Volpe ended the suspense.
The Yankees’ No. 9 hitter got a 1-1 sinker and drove it to right field for a grand slam, turning a game that had spent most of the night hovering within reach into a 10-2 blowout. Volpe finished with five RBI.
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Agnos’ pitch data showed just how dangerous his two innings had been. Seven of the eight balls put in play against him were hard-hit, with an average exit velocity of 98.1 mph. He survived the sixth, but couldn’t escape the seventh.
The offense leaves too much behind
Colorado did scratch across one more run in the eighth.
Zac Veen pinch-hit for Carrigg and worked a seven-pitch walk after falling behind 0-2 against Luis Gil, laying off several upper-90s fastballs in the process. Amador followed with a single that was deflected in right, allowing Veen to score and Amador to advance on the error.
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The ninth inning offered one final, almost painfully tidy summary of Colorado’s night.
Tovar singled. McCarthy singled. Vimael Machín, pinch-hitting for Norby, singled in his Rockies debut.
Then Goodman flew out too shallow to score Tovar.
Rumfield did the same.
And Veen struck out.
Game over.
Final thoughts
The Rockies finished 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position and left 11 runners on base.
Over the three-game sweep, Colorado struck out 36 times, went 1-for-13 with runners in scoring position and stranded 19.
They had chances. They just did almost nothing with them.
There were still a few small positives. Veen showed good discipline against premium velocity, Machín picked up a hit in his Rockies debut, and Amador continued to look more comfortable in his latest opportunity. The sample remains small, but his at-bats increasingly look like those of a hitter who belongs.
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Up next
The Rockies open a three-game series against the Detroit Tigers tomorrow night at Comerica Park, with first pitch scheduled for 4:40 p.m. MDT.
Mason Adams (0–0, 3.95 ERA, 17 K) will make his third career start for Colorado. Detroit will counter with veteran left-hander Framber Valdez (9–10, 4.17 ERA, 119 K).
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