Late Homer Lifts Rockies Over Rangers

Texas had every chance to extend its winning streak to four games, but C.J. Cron had other ideas.

The Texas Rangers appeared poised to stay on a roll, but squandered two three-run leads in a 7-6 loss to the Colorado Rockies on Tuesday at Coors Field.

The Rangers (56-67) lost advantages of 3-0 and 6-3, and failed to extend their three-game winning streak. Those wins closed out at four-game series at the Minnesota Twins.

The Rockies (54-70) put together a three-run seventh inning to overcome a 6-4 deficit. The Rangers helped the rally along with error, leading to every run in the frame being unearned. But that mattered little to Rockies first baseman C.J. Cron, who hit his 24th home run of the season.

The Rangers brought the normally-reliable Brock Burke out of the bullpen to start the bottom of the seventh. But the inning started with the Rockies’ No. 9 hitter, Wynton Bernard, reaching first on an error by shortstop Corey Seager. Bernard wasn’t on base long, as Ryan McMahon grounded into a fielder’s choice, which was the Rangers force out Bernard at second.

The error was key. Brendan Rodgers followed McMahon with a fly-out to Rangers center fielder Leody Taveras. Without the Seager error, the inning would have been over.

But Charlie Blackmon singled on a soft grounder to Seager by beating out the throw to first. Cron then took the first pitch he saw from Burke and deposited it into the seats to give the Rockies a 7-6 lead.

Texas took a 3-0 lead to start the game on a solo home run by Marcus Semien and a two-run blast by Nathaniel Lowe.

Semien reached 20 home runs for the season. Corey Seager — who has 26 home runs — and Semien became the third Texas middle infield combo with 20 home run campaigns in the same year, joining Elvis Andrus/Rougned Odor in 2017 and Michael Young/Alfonso Soriano, who did it twice in 2004 and 2005.

The Rockies answered, though, with a three-run home run by catcher Elias Diaz off Rangers starter Dane Dunning in the bottom of the second. That was the only major damage Dunning gave up, but he only went five innings before yielding to the Rangers’ bullpen.

But he left the game with the lead, as the Rangers scored three in the top of the fifth. Semien’s RBI single scored Bubba Thompson from second, a slow-rolling single by Lowe down the first-base line led to Lowe being forced out, but it scored Semien from third. Adolis García singled later in the inning to score Seager, who walked after Semien’s RBI single.

The Rockies scored a run off Dunning in the bottom half of the inning, the result of a Blackmon RBI single that scored Bernard.

There was another in the game. García, with a fourth-inning double, extended his hitting streak to 20 games, marking the 16th different time a Rangers hitter has done so. García also had a stolen base while at second base, making him the Rangers’ first 20-20 player since Danny Santana in 2019.

The Rangers conclude the series on Wednesday with Martin Pérez set to start. Texas is off Thursday.

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You can find Matthew Postins on Twitter @PostinsPostcard

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