DENVER -- Alan Trejo blasted the winning 11th-inning home run in the Rockies’ 8-7 victory over the Yankees at Coors Field on Sunday afternoon -- and he wasn’t ashamed to admit the feat was special.

“That’s something that I’m going to talk about for the rest of my life,” said Trejo, who homered off Ron Marinaccio to give the Rockies the win in the sold-out three-game series.

Trejo handled the cold part of the business adroitly when it hit him this year. More on that later. But the refreshing part of Sunday was how Trejo, who has bounced between Colorado and Triple-A Albuquerque the past three seasons, and the young home run hitters let their guards down about their special moments.

• Rookie Michael Toglia, like Trejo, hit his first homer of the season -- a small bit of Rockies success against Yankees starter Gerrit Cole during Cole’s 11-strikeout game -- in the second inning. Toglia, recalled from Albuquerque after the All-Star break, wore No. 7 in the Minors because his dad grew up a Mickey Mantle fan. Dad was delighted when the Rockies issued Lou Gehrig’s No. 4 to the switch-hitting Toglia.

“He wore a Toglia jersey, and underneath was a Yankees shirt,” said Toglia, who flied out to the warning track in right field before Trejo’s homer.

• Rookie Nolan Jones tied it in the 11th, and set up Trejo’s winner, by going deep for two runs, lefty-on-lefty, against Nick Ramirez. It was Jones’ second homer of the series after a lengthy dry spell. He understood that the Yankees had been attacking him with sliders through the series, but after Ramirez yanked his first-pitch slider, Jones sat fastball and swung like a kid.

“You get to play a game,” Jones said. “So I go out there, try to be my best every day, and just let it ride.”

• No need to let the young folks have all the fun. After Cole left the game, C.J. Cron, 33, knocked a grand slam just right of center off reliever Clay Holmes in the eighth. “We want to start the second half off on a good foot, and the home run in the eighth was great,” Cron said.

• And starter Chase Anderson, 35, shook off his 18.23 ERA over his previous four starts to escape jams in the third and fifth innings, hold the Yankees scoreless for five and reassert his goal -- “I want to be the starter that can stabilize the rotation,” he said.

Sunday was a dream for Trejo, but it came after a lesson in reality.

Trejo played for Team Mexico in the World Baseball Classic, and because of 2022 National League Gold Glove Award winner Brendan Rodgers’ left shoulder injury, he began the year sharing second base with veteran Harold Castro. Trejo was batting .241 through June 10 when the Rockies optioned him to Albuquerque.

The assignment was a tuneup, with Trejo’s leg kick needing to be recalibrated. But the mechanical fix worked because Trejo, 27, agreed with the diagnosis and applied the right attitude to the fix. He hit .370 with six extra-base hits and had at least one hit in all 12 Triple-A games.

“It's easy to want to blame somebody and be negative about it, but at the end of the day you have to be realistic,” Trejo said. “I didn't need coaches to tell me that I wasn't performing, because I already knew that. And when they sat me down, I saw the writing on the wall, and I knew what I had to do.

“So I blocked off all the negative energy. It’s what was best for me. Good things happened. Look where I am now.”

Manager Bud Black said, “He’s gotten some big hits for us over the last couple of years. Good for him. That was a good swing -- 2-0 count, and it looked like he got a hanging breaking ball.”

Trejo’s second career walk-off hit and his first since last Sept. 23 against the Padres handed the Yankees their first loss in which they had multiple leads of two or more runs in the eighth inning or later, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. It had been 134 at-bats since Trejo's last homer on Sept. 28 at San Francisco.

“I'm back to myself,” Trejo said. “I’m relaxed. I’m a lot more pleasant to be around when I’m myself.

“At the end of the day, I feel like I'm a big team guy. Whether I’m in there or not, I’m always going to be a rah-rah guy in the dugout.”

On Sunday, the rahs were for Trejo, who authored a story that will never get old when he tells it.