DENVER (AP) — The Colorado Rockies ended an eight-game losing streak as Brenton Doyle hit a tiebreaking home run off reigning NL Cy Young Award winner Chris Sale in the third inning of a 2-1 win over the Atlanta Braves on Wednesday.
Colorado had lost 16 of its previous 17 games and had been outscored by 78 runs. At 5-25, the Rockies avoided joining the 1988 Baltimore Orioles as the only teams since 1901 to lose at least 26 of their first 30 games.
Doyle homered on an inside fastball, ending an 0-for-20 skid with a 421-foot drive to left-center. He later doubled.
Rookie Chase Dollander (2-3), the Rockies’ No. 9 overall pick in the 2023 amateur draft, allowed one run, two hits and three walks in 5 2/3 innings with four strikeouts. Making his fifth big league start, he got his second win. Dollander came out after trying to pitch with a cracked fingernail.
Jake Bird, Seth Halvorsen and Zach Agnos finished a three-hitter, with Agnos getting three outs for his first major league save. Bird struck out two in 1 1/3 innings and has 24 strikeouts in 17 2/3 innings.
Colorado pitchers had allowed 14 hits in each of the first two games of the series.
Ryan McMahon went 0 for 3 and extended his hitless streak to a team record 0 for 34, one more than Desi Relaford in 2005. McMahon has two hits in his last 58 at-bats.
Doyle’s solo home run in the third inning ended a skid of 20 consecutive at-bats without a hit.
Sale (1-3) struck out a second-high 10 and walked none, allowing two runs and five hits. The Braves had won nine of their previous 11 games.
Sean Bouchard put Colorado ahead with an RBI groundout in the second, but Michael Harris hit a run-scoring groundout in the third.
Key moment
After replacing Dollander with a 2-1 lead, Bird struck out Ozzie Albies with runners on first and second. Atlanta didn’t put a runner in scoring position for the remainder of the game.
Key stat
Atlanta's Eli White ended a streak of six consecutive games with at least one extra-base hit.
Up next
Braves: RHP Grant Holmes (2-1, 4.50) starts a homestand opener Friday against the Los Angeles Dodgers and RHP Yoshinobu Yamamoto (3-2 and a major league-best 1.06)
Rockies: LHP Kyle Freeland (0-4, 5.93 ERA) starts Thursday at San Francisco, which goes with RHP Justin Verlander (0-2, 4.99).
___
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb
