WASHINGTON -- Maybe Michael Toglia and Jordan Beck need to sit together on every team bus ride to a game.
Toglia homered in the sixth inning -- the third homer in two games for a guy who returned Monday from an option to Triple-A Albuquerque -- and Beck homered in the eighth as the Rockies extended their season-best win streak to four games in a 3-1 victory over the Nationals at Nationals Park on Wednesday night.
“We manifested that on the bus earlier -- we were talking about how he’s gonna go deep today,” Toglia said. “Sure enough, there he goes.”
The conversation followed by home runs has happened before.
“Honestly, we were just messing around -- but we did it in Spring Training once, too,” Beck said. “We were on the way on the bus, talking like, ‘Hey, you know it’s a good day for it, might as well do it,' just as a joke.”
They both homered in that game against the Rangers at Surprise, Ariz.
This time, maybe someone from the Nats should have hopped the Rockies’ bus and sat between them. Whatever mojo the Rockies have -- they’ve won eight of their last 15 and are beginning to climb out of the mire of their poor start -- the Nationals don’t have, since they’ve lost 11 straight games.
The Rockies continued their climb against history. By improving to 17-57, they and the 1907 St. Louis Cardinals are tied for the second-worst 74-game start in the Modern Era (since 1900). They are two games better than the 1932 Red Sox, who were 15-59.
Colorado will attempt to sweep the four-game series on Thursday afternoon. If the Rockies do, it’ll mean both of their sweeps have come away from Coors Field. The other was on June 2-4 at Miami.
The homer happiness for Toglia and Beck has some odd aspects to it.
Toglia returned Monday after an 11-game tune-up in Triple-A. He went deep twice in Tuesday night’s 10-6 victory over the Nationals.
On Wednesday, he illustrated a key point from hitting coach Jordan Pacheco, who knows Toglia from his days as a first-round pick (23rd overall) in 2019 out of UCLA and a prospect in the system. Toglia needs to be able to confidently take a close pitch, even if it’s a strike, knowing he’d get another chance.
Wednesday’s first inning ended with a runner on second when Toglia took a called third strike from Nats lefty Mitchell Parker, one of his eight strikeouts in six innings. But in the sixth, Parker fell behind Toglia, 2-0. The curveball that he flummoxed the Rockies with didn’t stand a chance.
“I had a pretty good feeling he was going to throw a curveball, from just how he was throwing all game -- I don’t even think he threw the splitter tonight at all,” Toglia said. “It was one of those moments, 2-0, generally a fastball count, but the game told me it was going to be a curveball.”
Beck’s homer came after he went 2-for-12 on the road trip. Manager Warren Schaeffer did not start him in Tuesday’s victory, and on Wednesday, he put him in the third spot. Beck has led off in 28 games.
Beck responded by going 2-for-4 with three hard-hit balls -- a liner to shortstop in the first, a double in the third and the homer to left field off Jose A. Ferrer.
Beck, selected out of the University of Tennessee with the 38th overall pick in 2022, has a split that has vexed even some of the best Rockies. He’s batting .264 overall, but the slash lines are .303/.344/.479 at Coors Field and .222/.306/.472 away.
However, that .472 road slugging gains attention. Six of his nine homers have come on the road. Before the road trip, Beck said he spent time with catcher Hunter Goodman, who was given a day off on Wednesday. Goodman also has road power, with 11 of his team-high 14 homers coming away from home.
Beck said he has found his bearings on this trip, even though it ends Thursday.
“When we have long stretches on the road, we start getting used to being on the road, seeing stuff move again -- move differently and play differently,” said Beck, who noted that a little more work indoors rather than on the field seems to help him get used to the different movement of pitches. “We just get comfortable doing that. But when we go right back to Denver for, say, a three-game homestand then get right back on the road for a six-game road trip, there are just a lot of variables.”
One variable Beck and Toglia can eliminate is the team bus seat choice. Just stay together.