Brett Sullivan hit a two-run single with two outs in the 11th inning to give the Colorado Rockies a 6-5 victory over the Baltimore Orioles on Wednesday afternoon in Denver.
The win was the second straight for Colorado (54-86), which had lost 10 home games in a row entering September. Cole Carrigg had three hits and Adael Amador, TJ Rumfield and Jake McCarthy finished with two each for the Rockies.
Baltimore (69-71) entered the day 1 1/2 games behind Cleveland for the last AL wild card and led most of the day, but couldn’t hold leads in the ninth and 11th innings and wasted a career-high 11 strikeouts from starter Trevor Rogers.
Blaze Alexander had three hits and Jackson Holliday two for Baltimore.
Samuel Basallo and Alexander had RBI singles in the top of the 11th against Blas Castano (2-0) to forge a 5-3 lead, but Grant Wolfram (6-3) couldn’t hold it. Rumfield started the rally with an RBI single. Two outs later, Amador hit a ground-rule double to left to put runners on second and third.
Sullivan worked the count full before looping a single to left to win it.
Rogers held Colorado to six hits and two runs and didn’t walk a batter over 6 2/3 innings. He gave up a one-out single to Carrigg in the seventh and left after retiring Jordan Beck.
Closer Andrew Kittredge came on to preserve a 3-2 lead in the ninth, but gave up two-out doubles to Carrigg and Zac Veen to send it to extra innings.
The Orioles took the lead in the third inning off Colorado starter Tomoyuki Sugano. Pete Alonso had an RBI single and Luis Robert Jr., making his Baltimore debut, delivered a two-run double.
Sugano allowed three runs on three hits over six innings.
The Rockies scored in the bottom of the third on McCarthy’s RBI triple, but he was thrown out at home to end the inning.
Colorado cut the deficit to 3-2 in the fourth when Hunter Goodman doubled, went to third on a groundout and scored on Carrigg’s infield single.
–Field Level Media
