Seattle Mariners at Colorado Rockies

Lazaro Montes delivered the ultimate Coors Field special on Friday night.  And it saved the Mariners from letting another winnable game slip away.  The massive rookie slugger demolished a solo homer into the second deck beyond right field that put Seattle back in front and led to a 5-4 win over the Rockies. And it could not have come at a more opportune time, as Montes stepped in as the first batter in the top of the ninth inning. “I wasn’t calm,” Montes said. “I was angry.” Three innings after the Mariners coughed away a lead they held since the top of the first, Montes dug out a low-and-in breaking ball from reliever Jordan Romano -- into the lefty loop zone -- and yanked it a Statcast-projected 426 feet, with a bat speed of 84.8 mph and exit velocity of 107.6 mph. And it quite literally left the bleachers, chopping into the tunnel leading to the concourse. Yes, its sky-high trajectory was probably aided by altitude. But there’s little doubt that this one big swing would’ve yielded the same result in any of the sport’s 30 ballparks.  “He was looking for a pitch he could drive, looking for a pitch that he could hit out of the ballpark, and he did,” Mariners manager Dan Wilson said. “I thought he just executed that whole at-bat extremely well. He hit it a long way, and it came at a time when we really needed it.” It was Montes' fourth homer since joining the Mariners as a September callup, and none of them have been cheapies.  There was the 407-foot shot to straightaway center at Fenway Park in his debut on Sept. 1. Then the 430-foot moonshot to the left-center-field berm last Friday at Sutter Health Park in West Sacramento. And in between, the 474-foot blast on Sept. 8 that reached territory at T-Mobile Park that most believe no one else has.