Fifth-inning baseball betting is common, but even gamblers who make that their wager of choice must have watched in disbelief as the Colorado Rockies scored 13 runs against the San Francisco Giants on Thursday night. The game ended in a 17-7 victory for the Rockies, but the real story here is of course the new record set by Colorado. It all started when Trevor Story led off the fifth with a home run, followed by another by Nolan Arenado. Each drove in three runs for a new franchise record as well as the most runs scored in an inning by any team since Arizona scored 13 in the fourth against Pittsburgh in 2010.
Story hit a double in his next turn at bat, and Gerardo Parra had two hits and three RBIs. All told, the Rockies sent 17 batters to the plate. Each hitter either drove in a run or scored themselves – even pitcher Chris Rusin got in on the fun – and seven did both. According to manager Walt Weiss, Colorado had trouble scoring in the last three games. I guess it’s like when you can’t go to the bathroom for three days, but then you take a laxative and it all just comes out and you can’t stop it even if you wanted to. D.J. LeMahieu had three hits and drove in a run, Tony Wolters drove in two, and Mark Reynolds also had a pair of RBIs as the Rockies won their fifth in seven games after a season-worst, five-game losing streak.
Giants starter Matt Cain has lost his first four decisions in a season for the first time in his career – bad news for SF fans who bet on MLB. He allowed eight runs on 10 hits in 4+ innings and neither walked nor stroke out a batter. Reliever Vin Mazzaro yielded nine runs on six hits and recorded only one out. Cain: “the balls were a little higher than they needed to be.” Me: “that’s what she said.” On the other hand, Rusin ended a 14 1/3 innings scoreless streak, though Colorado’s fifth inning rendered that moot. Additionally, he gave up seven runs on 13 hits in his 4 1/3 innings, walked two and struck out four. Though Rusin left with a 10-run lead, he did not finish the fifth and was thus not eligible for the win.
San Francisco had a four-run rally in the bottom of the fifth after Rusin – who gave up a two-run single to Gregor Blanco (why do fools Rus in?) – was taken out for Christian Bergman, who took credit for the win. Jerk. All things considered, so many runs in a single inning is a rare occurrence, so baseball betting fans should take that into account.