Major League Baseball
Colorado 6, Miami 0
When: 8:40 PM ET, Tuesday, September 26, 2017
Where: Coors Field, Denver, Colorado
Temperature: 58°
Umpires: Home - Dan Iassogna, 1B - Alan Porter, 2B - Tripp Gibson III, 3B - Brian Gorman
Attendance: 30409

DENVER -- In his brief career with the Colorado Rockies, Tyler Anderson has shown he is not only unfazed by Coors Field but can thrive pitching there.

The left-hander proved that emphatically Tuesday night by working seven innings in a 6-0 triumph over the Miami Marlins, a vital victory for the Rockies in their push toward the postseason.

Colorado (85-73) leads Milwaukee (83-74) by 1 1/2 games and is 2 1/2 games in front of St. Louis (82-75). The Brewers hung on for a 7-6 victory over the Cincinnati Reds, and the Cardinals edged the Chicago Cubs 8-7. Both Milwaukee and St. Louis have five games remaining, while Colorado has four games left.

Anderson allowed four singles, didn't issue a walk and stuck out five in a 92-pitch outing that included 62 strikes.

"It's a game we needed to win," Anderson said. "We know that when you walk guys at Coors Field -- it's kind of what hurt us last night (in a 5-4 loss to Miami) ... so the whole goal tonight was to not walk anybody."

Trevor Story hit a three-run homer in Colorado's four-run first inning, and Nolan Arenado belted a two-run homer in the fifth off Marlins starter Jose Urena (14-7). That gave Anderson more than enough support considering how well he was pitching.

Since being reinstated from the 60-day disabled list earlier this month following arthroscopic surgery on his left knee July 3, Anderson (6-6) is 3-1 with a 1.19 ERA in four games (three starts). Two of those starts came at Coors Field, and Anderson threw 13 scoreless innings in those games.

"He had a good fastball both at the knees and elevated at times over the hands," Rockies manager Bud Black said. "Not many pitches out over the plate. There were a couple that they squared up, but there wasn't a lot of hard contact. The change was in play all night, kept them off balance, fastball in and out."

In 20 career games (19 starts) at Coors Field, Anderson is 8-5 with a 3.39 ERA. That is the lowest career ERA for a starting pitcher who has thrown 65 or more innings there.

Anderson, who made his major league debut in July 2016, ended the second and fourth innings with double-play grounders on his way to getting 10 outs on ground balls.

"He has that deceptive little leg kick that he does," Rockies catcher Jonathan Lucroy said. "You got a guy that knows how to actually pitch. He's not out there throwing. He's actually pitching, adding, subtracting, mixing up the timing of the hitter. It's tough for hitters to square guys up like that, it really is."

The Marlins did not get a runner to second base against Anderson until the sixth. Two singles started that inning, but Anderson struck out pinch hitter A.J. Ellis, got Dee Gordon to fly out and snared Giancarlo Stanton's bouncer to ease out of trouble.

In the first two games of this series, Stanton, who leads the majors with 57 home runs, was hitless in eight at-bats before he lined a double to left with two outs in the ninth -- only the second ball he hit out of the infield in the series.

In the first inning, Carlos Gonzalez, who went 3-for-4 with a double, grounded into a double play with runners at the corners to make it 1-0. Arenado and Mark Reynolds followed Gonzalez with singles, and Story won a nine-pitch encounter with Urena and hit his 23rd homer, an opposite-field shot to right on a 95.6 mph fastball.

"He's got a lot of life on his heater," Story said. "He's got some good off-speed stuff. Just trying to put a ball in play hard, really, and fought off some tough pitches and got one that I could handle and put a good swing on it."

Arenado made it 6-0 in the fifth when he belted a two-run homer to center after Gonzalez led off the inning with a double. Arenado's 36th homer of the season soared an estimated 438 feet to center.

Urena, who had given up six runs in 26 innings over four previous starts this month, allowed nine hits and six runs in five innings with four walks and four strikeouts.

"He wasn't as sharp as he has been," Marlins manager Don Mattingly said. "In the first, we got the double play from CarGo there to give up a run but clear the bases. If we can get out of that with one (run), at least we're in the ballgame."

NOTES: Marlins RHP Nick Wittgren, who has been on the 10-day disabled list since July 27, underwent arthroscopic surgery to have loose bodies removed from his right elbow. ... Marlins LHP Wei-Yin Chen is done for the year and will go to Los Angeles and have his left elbow examined by Dr. Neal ElAttrache. ... Rockies SS Trevor Story's three-run homer was his second of the season. He also has hit one grand slam among his 23 homers. ... Rockies CF Charlie Blackmon is trying to become the first player in 69 years to lead the majors in hits, runs, triples and total bases. Stan Musial in 1948 was the last National Leaguer to lead in those four categories, and Snuffy Stirnweiss in 1945 was the last American League player to do it.
Top Game Performances
Starting Pitchers
Miami   Colorado
Jose Urena Player Tyler Anderson
Loss W/L Win
5.0 IP 7.0
4 Strikeouts 5
9 Hits 4
10.80 ERA 0.00
Hitting
Miami   Colorado
Brian Anderson Player Carlos Gonzalez
1 Hits 3
0 RBI 0
0 HR 0
1 TB 4
.333 Avg .750
Team Stats Summary
 
Team Hits HR TB Avg LOB K RBI BB SB Errors
Miami 5 0 6 .167 11 8 0 0 0 0
Colorado 12 2 19 .400 14 5 5 6 0 0