Ezequiel Tovar homered, Kyle Freeland tossed six solid innings and the Colorado Rockies beat the San Francisco Giants 4-3 in Denver on Saturday night.
Victor Vodnik pitched the ninth to pick up his third save in five attempts for Colorado, which has a three-game winning streak for just the third time this season and can sweep the weekend series with a victory on Sunday.
Rockies catcher Elias Diaz left the game in the third inning with right calf tightness.
Freeland (2-3) has pitched well in five starts since coming off the 60-day injured list (elbow strain) on June 23. He has not allowed more than two earned runs in any of those starts and has dropped his ERA from 13.21 to 5.63.
Freeland allowed three runs — two earned — on five hits on Saturday night.
Tyler Fitzgerald homered and doubled for San Francisco, which has dropped its first two games coming out of the All-Star break.
The Rockies got on the board in the first inning after loading the bases with no outs. Charlie Blackmon scored on Diaz’s double play grounder, and Brenton Doyle’s infield single drove in Tovar to make it 2-0.
Fitzgerald’s third homer of the season cut the deficit in half in the third inning, and he delivered again in the fifth inning. After Mike Yastrzemski tripled off Freeland with one out, Fitzgerald brought him in with a two-out double.
Colorado went back in front in the bottom of the inning on Tovar’s two-run homer to left off Giants starter Logan Webb. The 455-foot blast was his 16th homer of the season and fourth in the last three games.
Webb (7-8) allowed four runs on eight hits in six innings and struggled with his location, walking a season-high four batters. He is 1-3 over his last five starts.
Tovar’s two-out error on Matt Chapman’s grounder in the sixth inning proved costly when Wilmer Flores followed with an RBI double to the gap in right-center field to make it 4-3. But Freeland got a groundout to end the inning.
–Field Level Media
