The Ari­zona series ear­li­er this week might have been the start of some­thing big for Raimel Tapia.

After start­ing three of the first four games of the short­ened sea­son but man­ag­ing just two hits in 11 at-bats, the out­field­er seemed to fall out of favor with Rock­ies man­ag­er Bud Black. Tapia found him­self com­ing off the bench against San Diego, San Fran­cis­co and Seat­tle, but fol­low­ing a pinch-hit­ting appear­ance in the first game of the series against the Dia­mond­backs, he returned to the start­ing line­up. Tapia took advan­tage, rack­ing up five hits in sev­en at-bats with two walks, two runs scored and two RBIs.

“I’m going into each game look­ing for my pitch,” Tapia said. “And not look­ing for what they’re try­ing to get me (with), but look­ing for what’s gonna work best for me and look­ing for good results.”

Part of Tapia’s recent suc­cess comes from bet­ter plate dis­ci­pline, some­thing he’s been work­ing on with hit­ting coach Dave Mag­a­dan and assis­tant hit­ting coach Jeff Salazar. Tapia said the staff has stressed patience. There’s also been an empha­sis on forc­ing oppos­ing pitch­ers to throw the pitch Tapia wants, instead of play­ing into their gameplan.

“They’re try­ing to make sure I’m stay­ing true and mak­ing sure I’m get­ting those right pitch­es,” he said.

The Rock­ies’ abil­i­ty to use a des­ig­nat­ed hit­ter has also ben­e­fit­ed Tapia. The outfielder’s over­throw of the cut­off man in the fifth inning was part of the Rock­ies’ col­lapse late against Ari­zona on Wednes­day, but his abil­i­ties at the plate have giv­en Tapia anoth­er chance to stay in the lineup.

“He’s a nat­ur­al hit­ter,” Black said. “Every play­er wants to play, every play­er wants to get at-bats every day but there’s a lit­tle bit of a per­for­mance-based oper­a­tion going on here right now and we need guys who can con­tribute. We popped (Tapia) back in there think­ing that he might be able to give us a lit­tle cause oth­er guys maybe aren’t swing­ing great and he responded.”

Tinoco trade frees ros­ter spot. The Rock­ies added a new arm to their orga­ni­za­tion late Thurs­day night after a trade with the Mia­mi Mar­lins, send­ing right-hand­ed pitch­er Jesus Tinoco to South Beach for anoth­er righty, Chad Smith.

The 25-year-old Tinoco made his MLB debut in 2019 and made 24 appear­ances out of the bullpen, but couldn’t lock down a place after going 0–3 with a 4.75 ERA. He was on the Rock­ies’ 40-man ros­ter, but hadn’t appeared in 2020.

Col­orado now has an open spot on the ros­ter as Smith, 25, has nev­er pitched above the Double‑A lev­el. The 11th-round draft pick out of Ole Miss intrigues Black, who praised his arm and break­ing ball. “This was more about the oppor­tu­ni­ty to get a 25-year-old pitch­er with a good arm and big poten­tial, poten­tial­ly to come to us and work with our group, and see what he can bring with his stuff.

Foot­note. Util­i­ty man Chris Owings has a sore ham­string. There is no timetable for his return.

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On Deck
Rangers RHP Kyle Gib­son (0–2, 4.11 ERA) at Rock­ies RHP Ger­man Mar­quez (2–2, 2.08)
6:10 p.m. Sat­ur­day, Coors Field
TV: AT&T Sport­sNet
Radio: KOA 850 AM/94.1 FM-

Mar­quez faced the Rangers on open­ing day in Texas and pitched well, lim­it­ing the Rangers to two hits and one run over 5 2/3 innings. Marquez’s fast­ball has been hop­ping in the ear­ly going, aver­ag­ing 96.4 mph over his first four starts. Gib­son is look­ing for his first vic­to­ry in a Texas uni­form and his first win since notch­ing a win for Min­neso­ta at Detroit on Aug. 30, 2019. He’s been a very durable pitch­er, hav­ing won 65 games for the Twins over the last six sea­sons with six con­sec­u­tive years of 25 or more starts. He’s nev­er faced the Rockies.

Trend­ing: Despite giv­ing up 32 runs over a three-game series with Ari­zona, the Rock­ies’ 3.99 ERA stilled ranked fourth in the Nation­al League enter­ing the week­end series against Texas at Coors Field.

At issue: Out­field­er David Dahl entered the week­end bat­ting .167 (7‑for-42) in 11 games in August. Dahl is bat­ting .169 since going 3‑for‑4 on open­ing day vs. the Rangers at Texas.

Pitch­ing probables
Sun­day: Rangers LHP Kol­by Allard (0–0, 1.00) at Rock­ies RHP Jon Gray (0–2, 6.41), 1:10 p.m., ATTRM
Mon­day: Rock­ies LHP Kyle Free­land (2–0, 245) at Astros RHP Bran­don Bielak (2–0, 1.76), 7:10 p.m., ATTRM