Per­haps the best thing to come out of the Rock­ies’ frus­trat­ing 2020 sea­son has been the emer­gence of right-hand­ed starter Anto­nio Senzatela.

He proved him­self again Sun­day, allow­ing just one run over 6 1/3 innings in Colorado’s 6–3 vic­to­ry over the Dodgers at Coors Field.

“Today was about fast­ball com­mand, and his fast­ball had life to it,” man­ag­er Bud Black said. “He threw the ball well. He’s pitch­ing with a lot of con­fi­dence and a lot of con­vic­tion in his stuff. He’s attack­ing the hitters.”

The Dodgers nicked Sen­za­tela for three hits. He struck out three and walked two, low­er­ing his ERA to 3.13. He was com­ing off the first com­plete game of his career, mean­ing that Sun­day marked the sec­ond time in his career in which he had con­sec­u­tive starts pitch­ing six or more innings while allow­ing one or few­er runs.

Col­orado has won six of Senzatela’s starts, dur­ing which he’s gone 5–0 with a 1.60 ERA. 

“I feel real­ly good right now and I have con­fi­dence with my pitch­es in the zone,” Senaza­tela said. “Every time, I’m putting it in my mind that every day is a new day.”

Ramos’ rebound. Vet­er­an right-hand­ed reliev­er AJ Ramos says he’s final­ly pain-free and that’s made all of the difference.

Ramos made his first big-league appear­ance in more than two years on Sat­ur­day night in Colorado’s 6–1 loss to the Dodgers. He pitched a score­less eighth inning, allow­ing one hit with one walk and a strike­out. He said it was his first time pitch­ing with­out pain since he first began expe­ri­enc­ing shoul­der issues in 2014.

“Now I’m not wor­ried about how I can throw a pitch with the least amount of pain while try­ing to get out some of the best hit­ters in the world,” Ramos said Sun­day. “When you have so many thoughts that take away from get­ting the guy on the plate, it def­i­nite­ly makes you a worse pitcher.

“There would be times where I’d grab the rosin bag behind the mound, just like squeeze it, and just say, ‘All right, man, it’s only going to be a few sec­onds of pain, you got to get through this and you got to get the job done.’ ”

Now that the pain has eased, Ramos fig­ures he can hook up with the Rock­ies or anoth­er team in 2021.

Fuentes en Fuego. Josh Fuentes, who’s mak­ing a splash in his audi­tion to be Colorado’s start­ing first base­man next sea­son, pound­ed out three hits for the third time in his career and the sec­ond time over his last three games. He went 3‑for‑4 with a three-run homer Fri­day night against the Dodgers and his hit­ting .369.

Fuentes said that being able to relax and not try too hard at the plate has been a big key.

“I think some­times, you want (to suc­ceed) so bad, and want to get a hit so bad, that I kind of fall into that trap,” he said. “But I’ve def­i­nite­ly been a lot bet­ter about tak­ing some pitch­es and find­ing the ones I could hit. But I still kind of expand (the strike zone) a lit­tle bit because that’s what I do best.”

On Deck

Rock­ies RHP Ger­mán Márquez (2–6, 4.33 ERA) at Giants RHP John­ny Cue­to (2–1, 4.78)
7:45 p.m. Mon­day, Ora­cle Park
TV: AT&T SportsNet
Radio: 630 AM/94.1 FM

Mar­quez is try­ing to fin­ish a dis­ap­point­ing sea­son on a high note. San Francisco’s Ora­cle Park might be a good place to start. He won there twice in 2019, includ­ing a com­plete-game, one-hit mas­ter­piece on April 14 that ranks as one of the best per­for­mances in Rock­ies his­to­ry. The right-han­der is 0–5 with a 5.26 ERA and five qual­i­ty starts over his last eight games. Mar­quez is 1–2 with a 2.64 ERA and three qual­i­ty starts in five road games this sea­son. Cue­to was sched­uled to start on Sun­day for the Giants but he was pushed back a day because of hip sore­ness. He’s been excel­lent vs. Col­orado, going 9–3 with a 2.71 ERA in 17 career starts. In his last out­ing, he took the loss vs. San Diego allow­ing six runs (four earned) on sev­en hits and three walks over 5 1/3 innings. It was the fourth time in 10 starts that Cue­to allowed four or more runs.

Trend­ing: Short­stop Trevor Sto­ry extend­ed his sea­son-high hit­ting streak to 12 games Sun­day, tied for the third-longest streak of his career. His longest streak is 16 games. Dur­ing his cur­rent streak, he’s bat­ting .348 (16-for-46) with two home runs, four dou­bles, one triple, five RBIs and three stolen bases.

At issue: Vet­er­an slug­ger Matt Kemp, who has deliv­ered a num­ber of key hits for the Rock­ies this sea­son, is in a funk. Dur­ing the just-com­plet­ed home series, he was 1‑for-19 with 10 strikeouts.

Pitch­ing Probables

• Tues­day: Rock­ies LHP Kyle Free­land (2–2, 3.75) at Giants LHP Drew Smy­ly (0–0, 3.94), 7:45 p.m., ATTRM
• Wednes­day: Rock­ies RHP Ryan Castel­lani (1–3, 5.59) at Giants TBD, 7:45 p.m., ATTRM
• Thurs­day: Rock­ies RHP Chi Chi González (0–2, 7.53) at Giants TBD, 1:45, ATTRM