The SoCal cousins came through big time for the Rock­ies Sat­ur­day night at Dodger Sta­di­um, and an enor­mous smile and a fist pump accen­tu­at­ed their rare 5–2 win over Los Angeles.

Orange Coun­ty native Nolan Are­na­do punched a go-ahead sin­gle to right field off Blake Treinen in the ninth inning to pro­duce the go-ahead run. Are­na­do, mired in a ter­ri­ble slump with run­ners in scor­ing posi­tion — a .167 aver­age vs. his career aver­age of .325 — let loose with an ear-to-ear grin. Arenado’s clutch hit was set up by back-to-back sin­gles by Raimel Tapia and Trevor Story.

Next, younger first cousin Josh Fuentes drove a pinch-hit, two-run dou­ble down the right-field line off of left-han­der Alex Wood to give Col­orado its three-run cush­ion. Fuentes start­ed cel­e­brat­ing as he ran toward first.

Fuentes was clear­ly hap­py for Are­na­do and said that his cousin’s big hit could release some pressure.

“One-hun­dred per­cent,” Fuentes said. “I don’t want to say that we depend on Nolan, but we all know that Nolan is our guy. He’s going to be our guy through thick and thin, so that was awe­some to see him come through for us right there. That’s what he does, and that’s why they pay him the big bucks. He’s just clutch and I think he’s start­ing to feel the pres­sure start to lift a lit­tle bit.” 

Col­orado had lost five con­sec­u­tive games to the Dodgers, all on the road, since their last win on Sept. 21, 2019. The Dodgers entered the game hav­ing won 19 of their last 22 games and hav­ing defeat­ed Col­orado in 24 of the last 28 games in L.A.

“It was a huge win,” Are­na­do said. “I mean, we haven’t won here, and yes­ter­day was such a tough game. So to see us come back from yes­ter­day and get a win is huge.”

Added man­ag­er Bud Black: “There’s a lot of things that have gone wrong over the last
cou­ple years here, but the fight in the guys has nev­er stopped. So to get a win and execute
some at-bats and make some pitch­es (is) obvi­ous­ly a great feel­ing for us.

“We’ve played these guys tough over the years and we’ve lost some real­ly heart­break­ing games that could have gone either way. Hope­ful­ly, the tide is turn­ing for us.”

An epic bullpen melt­down result­ed in Fri­day night’s 10–6 loss to the Dodgers, but clos­er Daniel Bard took care of busi­ness Sat­ur­day, shut­ting down the Dodgers in the ninth for his fifth save in five opportunities.

Starter Ger­man Mar­quez, who redis­cov­ered com­mand of his fast­ball, set the stage for Colorado’s vic­to­ry. His moment of truth arrived in the sev­enth with the game tied 2–2.

After giv­ing up a two-out dou­ble to Austin Barnes, Mar­quez was set to face all-star Mook­ie Betts, who was 2‑for‑2 with a walk. Man­ag­er Bud Black came to the mound to have a chat with Mar­quez, but left him in the game, giv­ing Mar­quez an encour­ag­ing smack on the rump. Mar­quez respond­ed by get­ting Betts to fly out to right.

“My first thought was, ‘You’re gonna take me out,’ ” Mar­quez said. “So I said, ‘Hey give me one more.”

Black said he went to the mound, not to take Mar­quez out, but to map out a strat­e­gy about get­ting out Betts.

“I like how Ger­man was throw­ing the ball,” Black said. “His stuff was fine. And I know Ger­man, and when he’s test­ed he can exe­cute pitch­es. So we for­mu­lat­ed a game plan against Betts and Ger­man exe­cut­ed two fast­balls that result­ed in the short fly­ball to right field.” 

Mar­quez entered the night in a funk, hav­ing lost a career-high four con­sec­u­tive deci­sions over five starts, going 0–4 with a 6.83 ERA since his last win on Aug. 4 vs. San Fran­cis­co. But the right-han­der respond­ed with the kind of out­ing Col­orado needed.

He allowed two runs over sev­en innings, giv­ing up five hits, strik­ing out five and walk­ing three. One glit­ter­ing defen­sive play res­cued him in the fourth. Right field­er Sam Hilliard robbed Cody Bellinger with a leap­ing catch at the right-field wall.

Mar­quez blanked L.A. for four innings but ran into self-induced trou­ble in the fifth. He opened the inning by walk­ing Gavin Lux, who entered the game with a .150 aver­age. Mar­quez got the next two outs before Betts drove in Lux with a sin­gle, and then Betts raced from first to home when Mar­quez hung a 1–0 slid­er to Corey Sea­ger, who ripped it to cen­ter for a double.

Char­lie Black­mon, who’s begin­ning to heat up again, pow­ered the Rock­ies to a 2–0 lead. He led off with the sec­ond with a dou­ble and raced home when Kevin Pil­lar flew out to right field­er Mook­ie Betts, who fum­bled the ball as he trans­ferred it from his glove to his hand.

Black­mon ripped a line-dri­ve, solo homer to right off starter Tony Gon­solin in the fourth for his fifth home run of the season.

The Rock­ies, a game under .500 at 19–20, have just 21 games left. Despite their recent strug­gles, Black­mon believes the Rock­ies are a qual­i­ty team.

“We have all the pieces,” he said. “Lots of teams have the pieces. But when guys get con­sis­tent and guys play well, and cer­tain areas of the Rock­ies’ game starts to come on con­sis­tent­ly, we’re going to be tough to beat.”