Nolan Arenado homered and doubled among his three hits, Michael Soroka tossed seven strong innings, and the Arizona Diamondbacks kept their slim postseason hopes alive with a 7-2 win over the Colorado Rockies in Denver on Tuesday night.
Geraldo Perdomo also had three hits and Ildemaro Vargas finished with two hits for Arizona (83-74), which remains alive in the National League wild-card race, sitting four games behind Philadelphia for the third and final spot with five games to go.
Mickey Moniak homered for Colorado, which finished with just three hits and just one after the third inning.
The Rockies (57-100) are the first team to lose 100 or more games in four straight seasons since the 1962-65 New York Mets.
Colorado starter Kyle Freeland (4-11) lasted just three innings in what could be the Denver native’s last home start for the franchise. Freeland is a free agent at the end of the season.
Soroka (9-5) struck out nine and allowed just two hits to match his longest outing of the season. He ended his night by striking out the side in the seventh.
Arizona wasted no time in jumping on Freeland. Vargas led off the game with a single and scored on Gabriel Moreno’s one-out double. Perdomo followed with an RBI single to center and eventually came home on Corbin Carroll’s double.
The D-backs went ahead 4-0 in the third when Arenado led off with a double and scored on Tim Tawa’s ground-rule double, but Colorado answered in the bottom of the inning.
Moniak led off with his 23rd homer, Troy Johnston doubled and Zac Veen reached on an error. A fielder’s choice put runners on the corners and Johnston scored on Connor Norby’s sacrifice fly.
Arizona tacked on single runs in the fourth and fifth innings on a pair of sacrifice flies before Arenado’s 28th homer of the year leading off the seventh made it a five-run game.
Arenado had a chance for the cycle in the ninth but popped out to shortstop.
