The Rockies and Cubs have a knack for playing odd, exciting, and/or marathon games against one another. That’s the premise here. Please don’t seek an analytical bent here; there is none. I suspect that phenomenon is mostly meaningless, the expected compound produced when one combines extreme, unusual run environments, persistent organizational failures in the area of bullpen building, and a hefty dose of random variance. No, this is mostly a storytelling thing, a walk down memory lane. Here are two teams who have only played 179 games against each other, but have managed to engage in at least 15 contests that would stand out as one of the two or three most remarkable in a season for a typical team. It’s fun. Baseball should be fun.
The third game they ever played was on May 4, 1993, a 14-13, 11-inning Rockies win… at Wrigley Field! The Cubs trailed 4-0 in the middle of the sixth that day, took a 5-4 lead with one in the sixth and four in the seventh, then gave up six runs in the Rockies’ half of the eighth to fall behind 10-5. Then they scored five to tie in the bottom of the ninth, capped by a three-run, 0-2, two-out home run by Sammy Sosa. In the 11th, the Rockies scored four times more—then had to hold off a three-run Cubs rally highlighted by a two-run Sosa homer.
On the Fourth of July in 1994, the teams played a doubleheader. The Rockies led 3-2 in the first game, but the Cubs scored twice in the bottom of the ninth to win. In the nightcap, Eric Young hit a leadoff homer, and it looked for a long time like that would be the only run. Then, in the ninth, Sosa doubled, and Steve Buechele singled him home to tie the game. In the 11th, Dante Bichette untied the game with an RBI single. The Rockies had two outs in the bottom of that inning, when Walt Weiss committed errors on two straight grounders and allowed the tying run to come around and score. Bichette cracked a two-run double in the 15th frame, to finally win the game for Colorado.
The Cubs scored 26 runs at Coors Field in a single August contest in 1995. Precisely six years after that first wild game, on May 4, 1999, the Cubs won a 13-12 game at Wrigley in which they led 8-2 after five, gave up three runs apiece in the Rockies’ next three turns at bat, tied it at 11 with two homers in the bottom of the eighth, allowed another run in the top of the ninth, then rallied for two and won in the bottom of that frame. Precisely seven weeks later, on June 22, they won in Colorado by exactly the same score (though rather less dramatically).
On August 7, 2001, the Cubs were in first place, and Wrigley Field was packed. It was hot, and soon close, so were tempers. The Cubs trailed 2-1 in the bottom of the sixth, with slow-footed Ron Coomer on third base and one out. Coomer tried to score when a ball got away from catcher Adam Melhuse, but Melhuse got the ball to Denny Neagle in time for Neagle to tag Coomer out—in the opinion of Angel Hernandez, the umpire at home plate that night. The Cubs didn’t agree, the crowd didn’t agree, and tension mounted as both teams barked at Hernandez for his (usual) terrible strike zone. By the seventh-inning stretch, guest conductor Steve McMichael (a 1985 Bear, because the 1985 Bears run Chicago the way the Daleys only wish they did, the way Michael Jordan wishes he did) was pretty drunk, and told the fans he would have “some speaks” with Hernandez after the game. That only increased the fever pitch, as did Hernandez’s characteristic choice to eject McMichael from the ballpark, rather than shrug the thing off. In the bottom of the seventh, the Cubs scored three times to take the lead. In the top of the eighth, the Rockies tied it right back up. In the bottom of the ninth, though, the Cubs won, on a play words could certainly describe, but which would be wasted by such treatment. Better to go to the tape.
Though it’s no longer so close, the all-time series between these two began with an even split of the first 100 games. The Cubs hit walk-off homers against the Rockies in 2002 (Moises Alou) and 2003 (Alex Gonzalez). In 2004, one game saw Aramis Ramirez crack a game-tying homer in the bottom of the 10th inning, and Corey Patterson single in the game-winning run in the 13th.
On the final Saturday of the 2006 season, the Rockies jumped out to an 8-0 lead after three innings at Wrigley, with both well out of contention. The Cubs scored one in the fourth and one in the sixth, though, then four in the seventh, two in the eighth, and one in the ninth, to tie it 9-9 (improbably, without hitting a single home run). Five innings later, the Rockies won 11-9, in nearly a five-hour game. Carlos Zambrano, who hit six home runs that year, was sent up to pinch-hit as the tying run with two outs in the 14th inning. All things considered, it’s a mild surprise that he didn’t crack a game-tying blast. (It was just a medium-depth fly ball to right field.)
On June 25, 2007, the teams met for the first time that season, and the Cubs were cruising to an 8-3 win. Then the Rockies scored six runs before they recorded an out, to take a 9-8 lead. An inebriated fan ran onto the field with the idea, it seemed, of taking on Bob Howry, who had blown the game for Chicago, but security memorably laid him out and hauled him away before he could get to the mound. In the bottom of the ninth, the Cubs put two runners on with two outs. Second baseman Kaz Matsui then flubbed a ground ball, opening the door for a two-run, walk-off single by Alfonso Soriano. The fan was convicted of a felony that winter, so this rivalry (if so we must call it, lacking a better word) has a criminal record.
On April 23, 2008, the teams met for the first time that season, and Ramirez hit a two-run, go-ahead homer in the top of the ninth inning. The Rockies scored to tie things in the bottom of the ninth, though, forcing the Cubs to win in extra innings instead. On May 30 of that year, the Rockies led 8-0 in the fourth inning and 9-1 after five. The wind was blowing out that day, though, and not softly. The Cubs started laying fly balls up on the breeze and watching them fly out. Two home runs in the sixth, two in the seventh, plus a wind-aided two-run double, and the Cubs wound up winning 10-9.
On July 31, 2010, the Rockies led 5-2 in the eighth inning, but Derrek Lee launched a two-out, three-run home run to tie the score. In the bottom of the ninth, though, Carlos Gonzalez hit a walk-off home run… to complete a cycle. The next day, the Rockies held an 8-1 lead with the Cubs down to their last seven outs—and ended up winning, but only after weathering a six-run Cubs rally that almost became a(nother) eight-run Cubs comeback. A walk and three singles pushed across two Cubs runs in the seventh. Alfonso Soriano homered to lead off the eighth. In the ninth, Huston Street came on to hold a four-run lead, even though he’d pitched the day before. He walked two straight batters with one out, then allowed a Marlon Byrd triple that brought Soriano back to the plate as the tying run. Soriano hit a ball just over the wall in right-center field—but it turned out not to be a go-ahead home run. Dexter Fowler: not always a Cubs fan’s best friend.
After that, the wackiness of these teams’ matchups died down for a few years, which we should have known meant trouble. Our comeuppance came on July 29, 2014, with both teams in last place, nothing on the line, no need to get dramatic. The Rockies scored three runs in the top of the first and forced Edwin Jackson to throw 35 pitches, and it could well have been a quiet night. But these are the Cubs and the Rockies. Emilio Bonifacio, playing his last game as a Cub (though no one yet knew it), cracked a game-tying two-run homer in the fourth inning, and that’s when things went quiet. From that moment through the end of the ninth inning, the Rockies managed to get one runner as far as second base (in the top of the seventh, with two outs), and the Cubs managed to get one runner as far as second base (in the bottom of the ninth, with two outs). It looked like the dam was sure to break in the 10th: the Rockies put runners on second and third with one out. But then Walt Weiss called for a squeeze bunt, and when D.J. LeMahieu bunted through the ball, the Cubs were able to tag Justin Morneau out in a rundown. Then LeMahieu struck out, killing the threat. In the bottom of the frame, Starlin Castro was on second base with one out, when Welington Castillo hit what looked like a sure game-winning single. Nope.
And on went the beat. The Cubs’ first two batters in the 13th inning walked, but the next three struck out. The Rockies managed nothing, just a single and two walks from the 10th inning onward. WGN, delivering the game to a national audience via the now-defunct superstation, slowly ran out of commercials to run, other than one for Bud Light Lime-a-Ritas, which is why many Cubs fans will always be the “Fiesta Forever” game. Six hours into the game, the Cubs threw up their hands and put catcher John Baker on the mound. Baker proceeded to pitch a scoreless inning, and then, after leading off the bottom of the framer with a walk, scored the winning run on a Starlin Castro sacrifice fly. It wasn’t all that deep a fly, and truth be told, it felt weird when Baker slid in safely, instead of somehow being pegged at the plate. He was safe, though, and so the game was over, somewhere on the other side of 1:30 AM in Chicago.
The next night, the Rockies led 4-2 in the bottom of the eighth, when Luis Valbuena homered to tie the game, and eventually force extra innings. Colorado won, mercifully, in 10. Somehow, the two teams played again less than a week later, in Colorado, and on August 5, they went to extra innings again—12 this time. The Cubs scored with two outs in the 11th, but so did the Rockies. It took Javier Baez’s leadoff home run in the 12th inning—in his big-league debut, after having started 0-for-5 with three strikeouts—to permanently untie it.
And so we arrive at 2015. In April, the Cubs bested the Rockies on a(nother) 0-2, two-out, two-run homer, this one by turncoat Dexter Fowler. The Big One for the year came in July, though. It was a Monday night, right after the Cubs (previously contenders, even favorites, for a Wild Card spot in the NL) were swept by the seemingly hapless Phillies. They’d lost on Friday when their bullpen (inside out and upside down at the moment, with Joe Maddon keeping Hector Rondon somewhat inexplicably out of his closer’s role but replacement closer Jason Motte running on fumes, and reinforcements like Rafael Soriano and Neil Ramirez proving thoroughly unreliable) imploded. They’d lost Saturday when Cole Hamels no-hit them. They’d lost Sunday, in an embarrassing blowout that saw catcher David Ross pitch the top of the ninth and hit (as it would turn out) his only home run of the season in the bottom of the inning—as a pitcher, officially.
The Rockies, on the other hand, came in hot, at least at the plate. Carlos Gonzalez had seven home runs in the 11 games leading up to that Monday night. He opened the scoring that night, too, with a two-run homer. The Rockies would go up 4-0, before the Cubs stormed back with seven unanswered runs.
Well, unanswered for a while. Starter Kyle Hendricks (who starts Friday!) limped through five innings, and the middle relievers did yeomen’s work, such that Motte was handed a three-run lead with just three outs to get. He didn’t come close, though. Instead, he allowed a homer, then a single, then a double. Maddon went to Soriano, still hoping he’d turn back into a carriage, but he was pumpkin all the way. Gonzalez launched a 1-1 pitch into the right-field corner for another homer, and the Rockies had the lead.
I should note that as hot as Gonzalez was, entering that game, Kris Bryant was at least as cold. Going back to the series immediately before the All-Star break, Bryant had a .120 batting average and sub-.500 OPS in his previous 58 plate appearances. He’d made some unrewarded good contact during that span, but not enough contact overall: he’d whiffed 23 times in those 58 PA. Naturally, then, this being the Rockies and the Cubs, Bryant stepped to the plate with two outs and the tying run on first in the bottom of the ninth, and launched the most important home run by a Cub this decade.
I rest my case. You can decide whether this represents a statistically significant departure from the expected amount of craziness in 20-odd seasons’ of games between two non-divisional foes. It might well be that I’m imagining this, or underestimating the role Coors Field plays in making baseball go mad. I suspect, though, that most pairs of teams who play just six or seven times a season don’t get to have this much fun doing it.
Lead photo courtesy Caylor Arnold—USA Today Sports.
Fun article — I was at that McMichael game in 2001 and the atmosphere was weird and strangely electric. It was like everyone had agreed before the game, “Ok, we’re all going to get REALLY hammered and crazy.” Felt like a playoff game. Angel Hernandez’s “stare-down” of McMichael was one of the most eye-rolling displays of faux machismo I’ve ever seen. And the way the game ended was crazy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6htcE_vvZxg
One question, though: You called Bryant’s homer the most important by a Cub this decade. What’s your thinking there? That it gave him/the team the belief that this squad was for real and deserved to be sitting at the big boys’ table?
“Faux machismo”! Couldn’t have said it better myself. Seeing that video again reminded me how ridiculously over the top stupid that was. And throwing McMichael out of the ballpark was really a poor show of arrogant pride.
In fairness, McMichael was completely toasted and was completely out of line, but hey, ’85 Bears! He can do whatever he heck he likes!
Yeah, that was ridiculous. I couldn’t believe an ump could have someone like that ejected from a game. Even worse that a member of the ’85 Bears was disrespected — I thought that was against the law.
HA! You’re right! It IS against the law!