Knocked for a loop by illness, McMahon shows renewed strength

DENVER -- The numbers say Rockies third baseman Ryan McMahon is not the same player in the second half that he was while earning his first All-Star Game nod in the first half. He doesn’t need a stat sheet to measure it.

During the club’s first road trip after the All-Star break, McMahon came down with a bug that affected many of the Rockies. It hit McMahon particularly hard.

“It lingered,” McMahon said. “I lost 12-15 pounds. I’m down around 200 right now. I normally play around 210. Pretty close to my high school weight. It was tough getting that back.”

But McMahon, who also is dealing with his longtime late-season companion of tendinitis in his left knee, delivered a full-bodied, 438-foot home run to right-center field to give the Rockies a 3-2 victory over the Marlins at Coors Field on Monday night.

It was a night for guys like McMahon to show what they can be.

Starting pitcher Ryan Feltner, coming off an injured list stint with right shoulder soreness, held the Marlins to two runs in five innings.

Jake Bird, in the first game of his fourth stint on the roster this year, began a vital performance from the bullpen. Bird was followed by Justin Lawrence, who has had wild swings in quality all season. Rookie Angel Chivilli and vet Tyler Kinley kept the Marlins quiet in the eighth and ninth.

McMahon, 29, is a respected persona on a team that has clinched its sixth straight losing season, but believes it can become a winner sooner or later. Admired is his willingness to endure pain without complaint. He doesn’t give in to the extenuating reasons for his post-break numbers -- a slash line of .158/.289/.287 and only three home runs.

But save for a few rest days, McMahon has stayed in the lineup as a presence defensively. On Monday, there was a spinning grab of a Connor Norby grounder in the second and a barehand pickup and throw to beat a Vidal Bruján bouncer in the fifth.

McMahon homered to right-center field on a nasty pitch from Cabrera.

Manager Bud Black saw it as not just a homer, but as the left-handed-hitting McMahon’s “A” swing.

“I like when he’s pulling the ball,” Black said. “He pulled a ball yesterday in New York, hit the ball into the corner. He got a base hit today pulling the ball. He pulled the ball to right-center for the homer.

“I know Mac has opposite-field power. We talked a lot about staying inside the ball and using the middle of the field. But Mac is capable of doing what he did today, getting the head out and pulling the ball -- cheating on some fastballs and getting the ball into right field.”

McMahon challenges himself to be a complete player, no matter how he feels.

He didn’t reveal until Spring Training that his late struggle in ’23 was partly due to the tendinitis in both knees and a right shoulder problem that required a cortisone shot.

The illness this year is not a subject he enjoys discussing, and the tendinitis would not have come up had he not had ice wrapped around his knee.

Staying in the lineup? Now we’re talking.

“It’s a tough game, right?” McMahon said. “It’ll kick you when you’re down. But the way I was raised, just who I am and who I hang around, I feel I’d be letting people down if I didn’t show up and at least try my hardest. I’ve tried to keep playing defense as well as I could until the swing came around.”