Rockies Lose a Heart Breaker in San Fran

     The Colorado Rockies looked like they had the game in hand as Troy Tulowitzki belted a go ahead home run in the 10th inning on Saturday, that was before a rarity happened in the bottom half of that inning. With the Rockies up by one Angel Pagan stepped up to the plate with a runner on second and one out. Pagan drove the ball to deep right center field and it bounced away from right fielder Michael Cuddyer. Pagan was running hard out of the box and was sent home by the third base coach and beat the relay throw to the plate. The Rockies lost 6-5 on a walk-off inside the park home run by Angel Pagan. This was the first time that a inside the park home run ended a game since 2004 when Rey Sanchez accomplished the feat for Tampa Bay on June 11th, 2004. Coincidentally that game was also a 10th inning walk off against the Rockies. According to Baseball Reference, there have been only 14 walk off inside the park home runs before Angel Pagan hit number 15 on Saturday afternoon.

     The game looked promising from the start for the Rockies as they jumped out to a 2-0 lead against the Giants with a home run by Carlos Gonzalez that splashed into McCovey Cove. They built their lead to 4-0 in the fourth inning when Michael Cuddyer and Jordan Pacheco both had RBI hits. The Giants came roaring back as they scored three in the 6th and one in the seventh to tie the game up 4-4. The score remained that way until Tulowitzki hit a solo home run off of Sergio Romo in the 10th inning. After that Angel Pagan worked his magic in the bottom half of the tenth and the Giants walked off as winners and back into a three way tie for first place in the National League West division.

     Rockies starter Juan Nicasio cruised through the first five innings of the game without allowing any runs but hit a road block in the sixth and gave up a couple of runs and was removed before recording an out. His line for the game was five innings with seven hits, two runs, one walk and two strikeouts. His counterpart Barry Zito did the best that he could with mediocre stuff on the day and fought his way through six innings giving up seven hits, four runs, one walk and struck out three. Sergio Romo worked the tenth inning for the Giants and despite giving up the solo home run to Tulowitzki was able to secure the victory and improve his record to 3-2 on the year with a 3.00 ERA. Rafael Betancourt took the loss on Saturday as he gave up two runs on one hit and one walk and was only able to record one out. His record is now 1-2 with a 2.55 ERA. Betancourt did not have his best stuff on the day and issued a rare lead off walk to Brandon Crawford which got the momentum going in the right direction for the Giants. This was the first blown save of the year for Rafael as he was a perfect 10-10 prior to today. He came out of the game earlier in the week with a tight right groin and his poor performance on Saturday leads some to believe that it may have played a part in the outcome of the game and perhaps was not right coming into the game.

     The Rockies will be taking on the Giants in the rubber match of the series on Sunday afternoon. The starters for the game are Jon Garland (3-5, 5.19 ERA) for the Rockies against, Matt Cain (3-2, 5.12 ERA) for the Giants. First pitch for the series finale will be at 2:05 PM Mountain time.

Angel Pagan walk off inside the park home run against the Rockies 5/25/2013 

(Video by Comcast Sports Net San Francisco)