Rockies relievers fill in for starters in 4-3 victory against Astros

It’s been said that necessity is the mother of invention. You can ask the Rockies about that.

With their starting rotation racked by injuries, the Rockies were forced to use a bullpen game Tuesday night at Coors Field. A sextet of relievers blanked the Astros for eight innings in Colorado’s 4-3 victory.

The six: Tommy Doyle, lefty Fernando Abad, Gavin Hollowell, Pierce Johnson, Daniel Bard and closer Justin Lawrence. Lawrence set the Astros down in order in the ninth for his sixth save.

Colorado is on a nice roll. It has won three of four games since the All-Star breaking, having taken two of three games from the Yankees over the weekend. And the Rockies snapped a four-game losing streak to the Astros, who had won eight of the last 10 games entering Tuesday night.

It was a milestone night for Abad, the 37-year-old from the Dominican Republic, who picked up the win. It was his first big-league victory since June 13, 2017, as a member of the Red Sox vs. Philadelphia, a span of 2,226 days between major league victories.

“That’s amazing … that’s a long time ago,” said Abad, who owns a barbershop in the Dominican, and cuts his teammates’ hair, both at Triple-A Albuquerque and with the Rockies.

Manager Bud Black praised Doyle for restoring order after the Astros scored three runs off “starter” Jake Bird in the first inning. And he was thrilled with how the relievers picked each other up, inning after inning.

“To put up eight zeroes after the first (inning) says something, collectively, about how those guys pitched tonight,” Black said.

Rookie shortstop Ezequiel Tovar, who’s proven worthy of all of the preseason hype, drove in the winning run with a two-out triple off the center-field wall in the fourth inning. Tovar drove in C.J. Cron, who reached first when Houston starter Hunter Brown plunked him to open the inning.

Tovar’s got a green light on a 3-0 count and he punished Brown’s 94.5 mph four-seam fastball.

“Brown’s got a good fastball but we felt good about Tovar putting a good swing on it — and he did,” Black said. “What you want on a 3-0 count is hard contact on a fastball and that’s what we got. Tovar did a good job and didn’t try to do too much with it.”

Tuesday marked Colorado’s third bullpen game of the season. The opening act did not go well for Bird, the workhouse right-hander.

Bird plunked Mauricio Dubon with the game’s first pitch and Alex Bregman doubled home Dubon on the fifth pitch. Bird fanned Kyle Tucker and Jose Abreu before giving up an RBI single to Chas McCormick and an RBI double to Yainer Diaz.

Colorado tied the game in its first at-bat, utilizing Jurickson Profar’s leadoff single, an opposite-field, two-run homer by Kris Bryant, and a 461-foot solo homer to center by Ryan McMahon. McMahon’s homer was his team-leading 15th.

Bryant’s homer was his eighth and his second in four games. He’s been tearing it up in the first inning. He’s now hitting .434 (23-for-53) with two doubles and three home runs in the first inning this season.