Dynamic Duo: Story, Arenado dominate vs. Fried

ATLANTA -- Trevor Story and Nolan Arenado, hitting second and third in the Rockies’ batting order, played baseball’s version of basketball’s H-O-R-S-E for much of Friday night. Their matching performances led to a satisfying swish -- the Rockies’ ninth victory in 11 games, 8-4 over the Braves at SunTrust Park.

Both homered off the Braves' previously dominant starter, Max Fried, to a nearly identical spot into the visiting bullpen in left field in the fourth. Story’s leadoff shot extended his hit streak to 14 games -- the longest current run in the Majors. Story doubled the opposite way to open the sixth. So, naturally, Arenado had to follow during a two-run inning, as Daniel Murphy joined the Story-Arenado game, but the opposite way to left, for a double.

“It was awesome,” Arenado said. “Just good, quality at-bats from everyone.

“We were just trying to get good pitches to hit, and we knew we couldn’t miss it. He’s got a really good curveball, good change, good stuff all around. We knew we couldn’t let him get ahead. We had to be ready to hit.”

Story and Arenado even bracketed the hits with almost identical outs. Both struck out in the first, Story looking, Arenado swinging. They flied out in the seventh, Story going to left, Arenado to center. But the duo, and Murphy’s two doubles and a single, led a 12-hit offense.

Story and Arenado's copycat hits were uncanny, but manager Bud Black hopes the performance will not be unusual.

Story has hit second for three straight games. And with the reintroduction of Murphy to the lineup two games ago, Black said before the game he would go with Story and Arenado in the No. 2 and 3 holes against tough lefties.

Fried (3-1) clearly qualifies.

“He’s got good stuff,” said Black, whose lineup plan against righties is to bat Murphy between Story and Arenado to break up the righties with an eye toward affecting the opponent's bullpen strategy. “He shut us down the first inning. Second inning, he got us, and then two of our best players got him on off-speed pitches. From that point, the approach was good with Trevor hitting an opposite-field double, Nolan same thing, Murph went the other way -- opposite-field double.

“That inning was big, to get it to 4-2. That was the momentum-changer for the game, and to get him out of the game, and to get to their bullpen and continue to have good at-bats throughout the night.”

Before the Rockies bested him for four earned runs on seven hits, Fried -- who still fanned eight -- had a 1.38 ERA through four starts.

Story improved his team-leading homer total to six and Arenado’s rose to five. Arenado also has 19 RBIs, Story 16. Both homers came on first pitches, Story’s on a changeup, Arenado’s on a curve.

"At the end of the day, righty or lefty, you’ve just got to go after the hitter,” Fried said. “You try to go after their weaknesses. Putting those guys back-to-back, those are two really good hitters and they do a lot of damage against lefties. You have to pick your spots. When I made the mistakes, they were able to take advantage."

Interestingly, Arenado’s first-inning strikeout served as an indication that the strategy could work. It ended a 1-2-3 inning, but it took Fried nine pitches to vanquish Arenado -- in an at-bat where the count was 1-2 after three pitches.

“That helped me out, for sure, the next two at-bats,” Arenado said. “You don’t want to strike out but he made his pitches. He beat me there. Then when Story hit the homer I was trying to get something up, and I hit the curveball.”

Senzatela kept his senses

The work of the Story-Arenado duo, chiefly, supported Antonio Senzatela (2-1), who pitched around seven hits and three walks -- on a night he had difficulty keeping his face from showing displeasure with plate umpire Carlos Torres’ strike zone -- to hold the Braves to three runs in 5 2/3 innings.

While some of the pitches he disagreed with led to walks that drove up his pitch count, Senzatela said he simply had to adjust.

“If I give in to that, I’d throw the ball right down the middle,” Senzatela said. “I had to focus: ‘OK, he [Torres] doesn’t give me corners, I need to throw the ball in the corners and they need to swing the bat.'”

Hot in Hot-lanta

The Rockies have won seven straight at SunTrust Park. That’s one fewer than their club record in a road park, Citi Field (Mets) from April 2011 to August 2012.