Charlie Blackmon stays hot, leads Rockies to win over Braves – The Denver Post

That old Charlie Blackmon magic is back.

The wooly right fielder stayed hot Saturday night, blasting a two-run homer and scoring two runs in the Rockies’ 7-6 win over Atlanta at Coors Field.

The Rockies improved to 45-23 at the ballpark in LoDo, and as the Braves are discovering, it’s not a place to pad division leads. Fortunately for the Braves, Philadelphia lost to Miami again on Saturday, allowing the Braves to maintain their two-game lead in the National League East.

The Rockies won despite a so-so start from German Marquez and a shaky eighth inning from reliever Daniel Bard, the deposed closer.

Atlanta loaded the bases against Bard with one out on walks by Freddie Freeman and Austin Riley and a single by Adam Duval. But Robert Stephenson came to the mound to rescue Bard and the Rockies. Dansby Swanson hit a sacrifice fly to center, but Stephenson limited the damage by striking out Joc Pederson to hold Colorado’s lead at 7-5.

New closer Carlos Estevez, who had not allowed a run in a career-high 14 consecutive appearances coming into Saturday, gave up a solo homer to Travis d’Arnaud in the ninth, but hung on to notch his fifth save.

Blackmon launched his two-run rocket to center in the third inning off Ian Anderson to put Colorado ahead, 4-3. The right fielder has hit home runs in three straight games and has six homers over his last 17 games. Blackmon hit just four homers in the first half of the season.

Blackmon also drew a walk to lead off the seventh and scored on Trevor Story’s triple into the right-field corner. That turned out to be the winning run.

C.J. Cron, the National League player of the month in August, stayed hot in September, hitting a leadoff homer off Anderson in Colorado’s two-run second inning. Cron’s homer, his 26th of the season, traveled 453 feet to left-center.

The Rockies’ produced their second run of the inning when Ryan McMahon doubled, advanced to third on a groundout and scored on Marquez’s sacrifice bunt.

Marquez labored through five innings, needing 99 pitches, including three wild pitches. Marquez gave up four runs (two earned) on five hits, including a solo home run to Ozzie Albies in the third. It was Albies’ 25th homer of the season.

The Rockies’ defense let Marquez down in the first, resulting in two unearned runs. Cron’s one-out error on Freddie Freeman’s grounder to first allowed Albies — who led off with a single — to advance to third. Albies scored on Austin Riley’s groundout and then Freeman scored on Adam Duval’s double.

The Rockies, who lead the four-game set 2-1, will look for the series win on Sunday afternoon at Coors.

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