“I think it can blown out of proportion a little bit. It’s a big-league team with big-league players. Anything can happen on any given day,” Braves first baseman Matt Olson said. “Sure, we wanna go out there and complete the sweep and feel like we’re a team that can go out there and do it. It sucks to waste that start from Holmes because we didn’t give him any support.
“But taking two of three, regardless of who it is, we keep stacking those we’ll be in a good spot.”
Holmes had one of the best — if not the best — starts of his MLB career. He fanned a career-high 15 (one shy of Spencer Strider’s club record in a nine-inning game) and gave up just two hits and two earned runs over 6⅓ innings. Seventy of Holmes’ 93 pitches were strikes, and he produced a whiff rate of 48%.
“It was probably about the fourth inning, I think I got 10 in the fourth,” Holmes said when asked when he noticed his strikeout total rising. “It was a special moment. I’ve pitched 11 years and haven’t struck out more than nine. To do it today, and blow by it, it’s pretty special. But got the loss, it sucks, but it’s baseball.”
The Braves bullpen, on the other hand, allowed five runs on five hits in the seventh alone. The lopsided score and ineffectiveness of Atlanta relievers led to infielder Luke Williams pitching the ninth — he allowed a two-out single and nothing else.
Holmes (3-6) was dealing early and often Sunday, and the righty had a no-hitter through 5⅓ before a one-out single by 9-hole hitter Braxton Fulford. But Holmes had hurt himself in the third by misfielding a swinging bunt off the bat of Ryan Ritter, then throwing the ball into right field, which allowed Ritter to scamper all the way to third.
Fulford then lifted a sacrifice fly to right to put the Rockies up 1-0.
Rockies starter Austin Gomber didn’t allow a base runner until the fourth, when he walked Ronald Acuña Jr. and had a no-hitter of his own working through 4⅔ when Michael Harris II hit a Texas leaguer that landed on the chalk in left field for a single.
Jake Bird (2-3) relieved Gomber in the sixth and gave up back-to-back singles to Acuña and Austin Riley, but Acuña was thrown out on Riley’s single to left when he tried to go from first to third on the play. Matt Olson’s single to left put runners at the corners for Marcell Ozuna, who laced a wormburner to right to score Riley and make it 1-1.
That would be the only signs of life from Atlanta’s offense.
“Just couldn’t get anything going early,” Olson said. “Gomber was mixing it up, a lot of breaking stuff, offspeed, kept us off-balance and just couldn’t get it going.”
Colorado, which struck out 43 times in the three-game series, countered in the top of the seventh when Ryan McMahon belted his 10th homer of the season, a 429-foot solo shot to center to give the Rockies the lead back. Holmes would depart to a standing ovation after a one-out walk in the seventh.
“I tweaked a little bit of mechanics, it was just more about rhythm, having a fluid rhythm,” Holmes said. “I feel like it worked pretty well for me, I was able to locate the slider down, get some swing and misses on the heaters in the zone which I haven’t been able to do this season. That was a big part of today’s plan.”
Enyel De Los Santos couldn’t hold the score there, surrendering back-to-back singles and then issuing a bases-loaded walk to give the Rockies (14-57) a 3-1 lead. Jordan Beck’s double to left made it 5-1.
Jose Ruiz came in to try to put out the fire, but his extinguisher didn’t work.
An RBI single and a Ruiz balk made it 7-1. Aaron Bummer allowed a three-run triple in the eighth, with all three runs being charged to Ruiz, who had walked two of the four batters he faced to start the frame.
“I expected to win this game. I expected to score runs. We didn’t score runs,” Atlanta manager Brian Snitker said. “We had a great, great start, which you score runs who knows what would have happened after we bring in the bullpen. I felt really good about today just going into it. Our offense is clicking here a little bit and we’re gonna continue this on and take some momentum into the next series. It didn’t happen.”
Atlanta fell to 31-39 and is off Monday.
