Slow, steady Rox come back fast and furious

DENVER -- Rockies outfielder Raimel Tapia was quick to compliment D-backs reliever Archie Bradley on Sunday afternoon. If Tapia keeps delivering big hits, the praises will keep flowing.

Tapia delivered a game-tying, three-run triple off Bradley and scored the winning run in a five-run eighth inning of Sunday’s 8-7 victory. The Rockies avoided being swept in the three-game series at Coors Field.

It wasn’t the first time Tapia came up clutch against Bradley. Last July 20, Tapia victimized Bradley with a grand slam in an 11-10 victory at Chase Field -- his only homer of 2018. He went 2-for-3 against Bradley in ‘16, and now is 4-for-7 with the homer, the triple and seven RBIs.

• Box score

Tapia broke into a smile and said through a translator, “I like facing good pitching, especially a pitcher like that. It makes me focus, lock it in a little bit more. When you face a good pitcher, you’ve got to be a good hitter, as well.”

The winning hit showed Tapia, 25, a prolific hitter in the Minors who made an Opening Day roster for the first time this year, is translating his good hitting to the Majors in his first true opportunity.

Tapia’s triple came right after David Dahl drew a bases-loaded walk that cut the D-backs’ lead to 7-4. Bradley fell behind, 3-0, as he did against Dahl. Then Tapia lined Bradley’s 3-1 pitch into the left-center gap and dashed -- reaching a top speed 29.9 feet per second, or one-tenth of a second faster than what Statcast terms as elite. He barely beat the throw to third.

“Honestly, I was just trying to throw a strike,” said Bradley, who gave up two hits and lost an out on third baseman Eduardo Escobar’s error before the walk to Dahl and the Tapia hit. “I was trying to go up and in, and I think it was just middle up.

“Really, since the first hitter, I really didn’t have good stuff and was just trying to make some pitches here and there. When you fall behind like that, no outs, guys are going to be super aggressive, and that’s what he did.”

The triple, which tied him with teammate Charlie Blackmon for the National League lead with four, added to a growing catalog of reasons why Tapia is receiving increased playing time and starts.

The Rockies knew he would have to develop as the year progressed, and he started slow -- 12 strikeouts in his first 32 plate appearances, with a high incidence of weak contact. A stride that cut him off from the inside pitch produced some wild swings that made him look like he was swinging for the fences.

Beginning with his first multi-hit game, April 16 at San Diego, Tapia has started 11 of his last 17 appearances in left field, with Dahl moving to center and Ian Desmond, between less-than-desired offensive numbers and bouts with leg soreness, becoming a part-time starter.

Over those 17 games, Tapia has produced a slash line of .294/.357/.706 with the unexpected power -- four homers (one inside the park). His hard-hit rate in those games is 41.2 percent; previously, it was 18.2 percent.

And he didn’t miss on Sunday.

“It was a good at-bat,” Rockies manager Bud Black said. “Bradley was a little erratic as he went through that inning, and Tap had a lot of looks. But there’s a little bit of history there with Bradley.”

The fact it was Bradley, a reliever of some renown, is not lost on Tapia. This week, long before Sunday’s at-bat came to fruition, assistant hitting coach Jeff Salazar put it in perspective.

“It really shows up against the better pitchers,” said Salazar, who has worked with Tapia since fall instructional ball in 2015. “It’s very evident. You can see him saying, ‘You’re really good. I can’t wait to show you how good I am.’”

Takeaways from Sunday

• Third baseman Nolan Arenado (2-for-4 Sunday) enjoyed the sun-splashed victory celebration, but it didn’t overshadow losing the first series of a nine-game homestand against NL West clubs. Hits with runners in scoring position and shutdown innings from pitchers are areas he noted specifically.

“As a group, we need to get better together and we need to start winning some series,” Arenado said. “This was a great win. It would have really been bad to get swept like that, but we did lose a series.”

• Starter Germán Márquez gave up a second-inning homer on a fly ball by Escobar -- one Tapia believed he would catch until it ended up in the second row of the stands -- and tied the game at 3 on his two-run single off Zack Greinke in the bottom of the fifth.

But Marquez left a changeup, intended to be low and outside, over the plate and in to Blake Swihart, whose two-run homer put the Rockies behind in the sixth.

In his last start Marquez was perfect for the first five innings, but he ended up absorbing a loss at Milwaukee because of Jesus Aguilar's three-run homer. In fact, Rockies starters have given up homers in 11 straight games, including six multi-homer games.

Black noted, “I’d rather have us be on the attack than have us walk guys,” but Marquez said the homers are still too frequent.

“Here in Denver, we have to keep the ball down,” Marquez said. “We have to find a way.”

• The Rockies finished with 10 hits Sunday and have had eight or more in 15 of their last 19 contests.