DENVER — For years, Nolan Arenado has tormented the Giants. They would visit Coors Field, and the end result was automatic. Arenado would beat them with a four-hit game, or hit three homers in the series, or walk them off. Or all of the above.
For three days this week, the Rockies third baseman was practically silent. But the man who stands 50 feet to his left every night was as destructive as it gets.
Two days after Trevor Story hit two homers off Giants ace Madison Bumgarner, the Rockies shortstop crushed three off of lefty Andrew Suarez.
Stay in the game with the latest updates on your beloved Bay Area and California sports teams! Sign up here for our All Access Daily newsletter.
And by crushed, we mean CRUSHED. Story hit 1,380 feet worth of home runs in his first three at-bats Wednesday night, including a 505-foot blast to the left field concourse that was the longest in the four seasons Statcast has been tracking balls in play.
Suarez stood in the visiting clubhouse a few minutes after a 5-3 Giants loss and shook his head. He managed a smile.
“It’s crazy how baseball works,” he said. “I thought I threw well. One guy killed me.”
It started in the first, when Suarez threw a slider that wasn’t far enough in and Story hit a moonshot that landed beyond all the seats in left and disappeared down a hallway. That one was estimated at 459 feet.
San Francisco Giants
Three innings later, Suarez tried a fastball. Another moonshot. This one soared towards the scoreboard at 112 mph and landed just in front of the Todd Helton Grill beyond the concourse. A man in an Arenado jersey looked down, stunned, and scooped up the baseball as he ordered a beer and bag of popcorn. You don’t expect to get a souvenir when you’re standing 500 feet from the plate, even here.
“He had a great day on us, and that was the difference in the game,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said. “He carried them. (Suarez) was hitting his spots with everybody. He just made mistakes to Story.”
The final mistake might have been made in the dugout. With two outs and nobody on in the sixth, Suarez was allowed to pitch to Story a third time with the score tied. You never want to put a runner on at Coors Field, but then again, it’s rare that anyone anywhere is sitting on a pair of 450-foot blasts in the sixth inning. Suarez tried to start Story with a changeup this time.
“It just stayed up,” he said. “Yeah, he hit it pretty good.”
Bochy said he did not regret the decision to let Suarez try to get Story out, even after the third homer.
“Two outs, nobody on, I have confidence in the kid,” he said. “He’s going to make an adjustment there and the pitch just got away from him.”
At that point, this night became less about the end result than Story’s end result. He got his shot at a fourth homer in the eighth, but this time the right-handed-hitting shortstop wasn’t facing a lefty. Bochy called on Ray Black, who had a plan as he watched from the bullpen. He wanted to start Story with fastballs and get ahead, then bury him with a slider. He fell behind 2-0 right away.
“I bailed on that pretty quick,” Black said.
Instead, he kept playing hardball. Black threw three more fastballs, blowing Story away with a 100.1 mph heater on a 2-2 count. Four of his five pitches to Story hit triple digits.
“I just tried to challenge him and stay up in the zone with fastballs,” Black said. “If he’s going to beat me, I’d rather he beat me up there.”
Story did not get his fourth, but that was little consolation in a quiet visiting clubhouse. The Giants were swept here, finishing 1-8 at Coors Field in 2018. They have lost 18 of their last 20 games in Denver.
“It’s been a tough place here the last couple of years,” Bochy said. “Some things are hard to explain. We don’t put up a lot of runs here. We did the first game, but with the exception of that, we haven’t been scoring a lot here.”