Gonzalez, Chatwood lead surging Rockies past Mets

Pitcher Steven Matz #32 of the New York Mets delivers a pitch against the Colorado Rockies during the first inning of a game at Citi Field on July 29, 2016 in the Flushing neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York City. He left with the Mets trailing 2-1, but Mark Reynolds homered in the eighth off Erik Goeddel and Carlos Gonzalez, after Antonio Bastardo walked Nolan Arenado to get to him, launched a three-run shot to right in the ninth. The Rockies send veteran Jorge De La Rosa to the hill to oppose the Mets for the first time in 2016. The 43-year-old is not only the only pitcher older than 28 in the NY rotation but also the oldest player in baseball.

The Colorado right-hander hasn’t lost away from Coors Field in 13 starts since July 2013, and he has an idea why that may be.

A home run from David Dahl and another strong outing from a starting pitcher, this time Jorge De La Rosa, propelled the the Rockies to their fifth straight win, a 7-2 victory over the New York Mets.

The surging Colorado Rockies are inching closer to.500 and quite possibly the postseason. The team has scored just 10 runs in five games on this home stand, going 1-4 in those contests, to fall 2.5 games out of a wild card spot.

Chatwood (10-6) improved to 6-0 with a 1.30 ERA on the road this season.

“I think that once it started raining a little bit harder, that field got a little bit tougher for me and might have affected me a little”, he said through a translator. And after carrying an 11-game winning streak against Colorado into this season, the Mets have lost all six games against the Rox this year. Wilmer Flores almost broke up the streak with a leadoff home run off Gonzalez Germen in the bottom of the ninth, but a fan reached over the left-field fence to catch the fly ball, leading to a fan interference call.

“He threw me six straight sliders and the one that he missed over the plate was the one I hit over the fence”, Gonzalez said.

“I walked eight the last time but we won and I didn’t give up a run”.

DJ LeMahieu drove in three runs and Dahl hit his second homer since making his big league debut this week, helping the Rockies reach.500 for the first time since late May. In the bottom of the eighth, the Mets appeared to start a rally. Walt Weiss, the Rockies’ skipper, pulled McGee in favor of Scott Oberg, who needed only three pitches to retire Travis d’Arnaud, Yoenis Cespedes, and Loney. For the record in the ballgame last night, the Mets were 0-8 with Runners in scoring position. We’re going through a rough time right now. Remarkably, both came on hits with runners in scoring position, situations that have typically brought nothing more than collective failure. “If we need to give him a day or every third day, we’ll do that”, Collins said.

“Right now we got to win the next three here”.

Rockies: RHP Chad Bettis (9-6, 5.19) is 5-1 in his last nine starts.

On the day the Mets retired Hall of Fame catcher Mike Piazza’s No. 31, the Mets tied their longest skid of the season with a fourth loss in a row.