Kris Bryant’s first multi-homer game with Rockies sparks 6-5 win at Arizona

The Rockies signed Kris Bryant to a seven-year, $182 million megadeal this offseason with the expectation that he could routinely put the club on his shoulders and carry Colorado to victory.

That hadn’t been the case until Friday night, when Bryant lived up to that billing with his first multi-homer game with the Rockies. The performance paced Colorado to a 6-5 win over Arizona at Chase Field.

“That’s the Kris Bryant that I’ve seen in the past, and I think that’s the Kris Bryant that he sees himself as,” manager Bud Black told reporters. “He’s healthy, he’s (feeling) strong, he’s comfortable, and he’s confident.”

Bryant got Colorado going in the first with a homer to left, then went yard again in the seventh inning for the 17th multi-homer game of his career. He added a double in the ninth for 10 total bases. The Colorado bullpen did the rest after right-hander Chad Kuhl kept the visitors in a game that saw C.J. Cron and Jose Iglesias depart due to injury.

“I fee like I’ve been swinging the bat well, seeing the ball well, hitting a lot of balls hard,” Bryant told AT&T SportsNet. “Anytime you go out there and contribute after taking a long time off (because of the back injury), it feels good. I just hope Charlie (Blackmon) gives me the (player of the game) chain today.”

After Bryant and Josh Rojas traded solo homers in the first inning, the Diamondbacks took control with Sergio Alcantara’s two-run homer in the second. Facing a 3-1 deficit, Colorado manufactured a run in the fourth inning with Ryan McMahon’s RBI groundout. But Arizona played small-ball right back, using Rojas’ safety squeeze in the bottom of the inning to extend the home lead to 4-2.

But Arizona right-hander Zach Gallen lost his command in the fifth. After pitching around Bryant to load the bases with two outs, Gallen walked in a run when he gave Brendan Rodgers a free pass on four pitches. Then Gallen hit Cron on the left wrist the next at-bat, tying the game 4-4 and forcing Cron’s exit from the game.

“That was a direct blow (to Cron’s wrist) by a really good fastball, so it’s encouraging that the X-rays came back negative,” Black said.

Colorado then re-took the lead in the sixth, capitalizing on Jose Iglesias’ leadoff double to make it 5-4. Iglesias scored on a fielder’s choice grounder by Yonathan Daza, but Iglesias suffered a head injury while sliding into home plate and also left the game. Black doesn’t think the injuries to Iglesias or Cron are serious.