PHOENIX — Perhaps expectations of a sweep were too high for an inconsistent Arizona Diamondbacks ball club hosting a historically awful Colorado Rockies team but Saturday’s 14-12 loss defies explanation.
MLB teams since the start of last season are now 158-2 when scoring at least a dozen runs. It was 158-1 at the start of Saturday. Under those same qualifications, it was the first loss in franchise history for Arizona while putting up 12 runs or more, with that record now sitting at 151-1.
Arizona (24-22) rallied back from going down 3-0 and 6-3 to lead 11-6, only for its bullpen to allow eight runs, seven of which were unanswered.
“It was a feeling of, ‘How can we stop this run from happening and get back in the dugout?’ … It was a very awkward feeling. The game had no flow, no rhythm. And they took it to us,” D-backs manager Torey Lovullo said of the loss.
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The D-backs got either the tying or winning run at the plate with two outs in both the bottom of the eighth and ninth inning, only to come up short.
The 14 Rockies’ runs are a season high.
They improved to 8-37 overall and 3-21 on the road. Colorado’s record through 45 games is tied for the worst ever since the turn of the 20th century. The only other group to have eight victories in 45 games was the Washington Senators 121 years ago, per Stathead.
This was the third game in 2025 that featured both the D-backs and their opponents scoring 10-plus runs, the most in MLB, according to Stathead. Arizona has lost all three. That also ties the franchise record, and Arizona did so in just a 27-game span.
D-backs starter Zac Gallen had his worst outing of the year and was fortunate the Arizona offense punished even worse Rockies pitching and defense to still leave him in a spot to potentially grab a comfortable win. The D-backs scored 11 of their 12 runs in the first five innings and snatched back the lead in “AnswerBacks” fashion for two of them.
Eight of Arizona’s nine batters recorded a hit across that stretch and six had a RBI.
Zac Gallen didn’t have it from the start vs. Rockies
Gallen was coming off a loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers in which he gave up 10 hits, tying his career high and doing so for just the second time overall, so it was a chance for him to reestablish a rhythm against a terrible ball club.
Gallen, though, didn’t do that.
He allowed two first-pitch homers in the first inning to create an early 3-0 deficit, continuing his massive struggles at the beginning of games. Out of Gallen’s 32 earned runs on the season, 19 have come in the first two innings.
His final line was six earned runs on eight hits, four of which were home runs. He walked two and struck out five in five innings of work.
“Didn’t necessarily feel like myself, which is obviously as frustrating as I feel like we kind of took a step forward and tonight it’s two steps back,” Gallen said.
Like the 10 hits in his previous outing, the four long balls tied his career worst and is just the second such occurrence.
His ERA on the season now sits at 5.14 through 10 appearances.
Gallen is going to have to pitch quite well the remainder of the season to enter free agency expecting a massive pay day, especially with his average overall numbers since the start of last season.
He was lucky the Rockies were Rockie-ing on the other side of the matchup.
Diamondbacks can’t use Rockies’ errors to bring victory
Colorado showed its rare form immediately, with starter German Marquez tossing 10 of his first 16 pitches for balls. He didn’t even get off his next pitch in time, doing so during a full count against Lourdes Gurriel Jr. for an automatic ball and free walk. Three batters later, Rockies Gold Glove shortstop Ezequiel Tovar skied a throw to second that could have resulted in an inning-ending double play.
Arizona got those three runs back, capitalizing off that ineptitude.
In the next inning, Perdomo doubled, Ketel Marte was hit by a pitch and then Gurriel knocked a stand-up triple into right-center to score both for a 5-3 Arizona lead. Pavin Smith then got him home with a RBI single.
In a little over a half-hour of real time, Arizona went from a dreadful start to being in firm control of the game.
Gallen swiftly gave that up again with two more Colorado homers in the third inning before the D-backs benefitted from another Rockies error to go up 7-6.
Eugenio Suarez and Alek Thomas clubbed Arizona’s first dingers of the game in the fourth, both of the solo variety, and then a Perdomo double was followed by a Corbin Carroll RBI single to extend the lead to 10-6.
The fifth inning begged the question of if the fixture was going to locate some version of stability or if the wacky ride would continue.
It continued.
Suarez got his third RBI on a sac fly in the fifth and then D-backs reliever Jalen Beeks sacrificed four runs in the top of the sixth to make it 11-10 D-backs. Ryan Thompson allowed three more in the next inning to have it 13-11 Rockies.
Kendall Graveman got the ninth inning after Josh Naylor’s double made it a one-run game and he failed to keep it there. Tovar’s career-high fifth hit of the day, a single, scored run No. 14 for Colorado.
Across those eight runs on the bullpen, a crowd announced at 35,129 was hardly reacting beyond some boos. Whether it was stunned silence or disinterest, certainly elevated by a lack of Rockies fans, it was a bizarre atmosphere.
Infielder Jordan Lawlar was 0-for-4 before he was pinch-hit for with Naylor. In three total appearances and two starts, he is 0-for-8 with five strikeouts and a walk, successfully hitting the ball out of the infield just once.
Sports Illustrated’s Michael McDermott noted how even with the absurd numbers in Triple-A, Lawlar specifically had major problems with chasing right-handers and their breaking balls. The 22-year-old is still quite young with lots of room left to grow, so staggered playing time might work out anyway.
D-backs-Rockies can be heard at 1:10 p.m. Sunday on 98.7 and the Arizona Sports app.
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