DENVER - Mickey Moniak didn’t exactly look like a player ready to tear the cover off the ball on Sunday. He boarded the Rockies’ team bus wearing a jacket in 90-degree late-afternoon heat, still working through a bug that had left him with sinus issues and body aches.
“I’m at the tail end of it,” Moniak said. “Yesterday was probably the worst day, but nothing crazy.
Just sinuses, body aches - you know, the standard. It kind of came on Wednesday and then I’ve been just battling it.
Today felt a lot better than the rest of the days.”
Good enough, apparently, to put together one of his better days at the plate in a while.
Moniak drove in four runs in Colorado’s 10-8 loss to the Cardinals at Coors Field, starting with a first-inning RBI single and following with his 22nd homer of the season, a two-run shot in the third. It was a welcome flash of the old version of Moniak, especially after a rough stretch that had dragged on for more than just a week.
Over his previous 13 games, he had gone 7-for-51 (.137) with one homer and one double. August was even tougher, with the left-handed hitter batting .188 across 26 games - his worst full and healthy month since he joined the Rockies at the start of last season.
The cold reality is that this year has been about more than a passing illness.
Moniak opened the season on the injured list with a right index finger sprain, but the bigger issue has been the right ankle injury he suffered crashing into the center-field wall in Pittsburgh in May. He says the ankle is fine now, but he’s still dealing with the aftereffects.
Before the injury, Moniak was rolling. He hit .280/.335/.607 with 12 home runs in 43 games, though that stretch also included a slump before he went on the injured list.
After returning, he struggled at first, then found a brief groove by homering in three straight games from June 30 to July 2 against the Marlins at home. At that point, Moniak thought he was finally getting past some swing habits that had crept in while he protected the ankle.
The problem, as he put it, is that baseball keeps grinding.
“It’s part of baseball,” said Moniak, who signed a two-year, $16.25 million contract extension through 2028 at the Trade Deadline in early August. “Coming off an ankle injury, I haven’t really felt consistent.
The ankle feels fine. I think maybe, I don’t know, the body’s protecting the ankle even though it’s all good.
But no excuses. It’s just been one of those months in the game of baseball where things aren’t going your way.”
Sunday’s game was part of a 3-3 homestand against the Orioles and Cardinals that gave a pretty clear snapshot of where the Rockies are right now: competitive in spots, but not clean enough to finish.
Tanner Gordon pitched well enough for Colorado to stay in it until the fifth, when the Cardinals broke through for six runs after Gordon had been one strike away from escaping the inning. The Rockies also lost runs in the field, with right fielder Troy Johnston coming up empty on two diving attempts and a run scoring on center fielder Cole Carrigg’s error.
On the other side, rookie lefty Cooper Hjerpe made his Cardinals debut and shut Colorado down, holding the Rockies without a baserunner while striking out six over four middle innings.
Still, when the matchup tilted the right way, the Rockies had some punch. Moniak’s two hits came against Cardinals right-hander Kyle Leahy, and his homer was his 18th at Coors Field, the most by a Rockies player since C.J. Cron hit 22 at home in 2022.
Manager Warren Schaeffer didn’t sound worried about Moniak’s current rough patch, even with the illness layered on top of everything else.
“I mean, he was sick as a dog yesterday, and still getting over it today - and he was huge today,” Schaeffer said. “That’s the thing we know. If he’s not good for a little bit, it’s only a matter of time before ‘Mick’ comes on.”
Moniak has made no secret of his belief that the Rockies, now 55-88, are headed somewhere better. For his part, he says he wants to be part of that climb.
“That’s all you can do,” Moniak said. “One of the best compliments you can ever get in this game is you’re the same guy every day.
I try to live by that. This game is tough.
It’s going to beat you down. You’re going to feel the highest of highs, the lowest of lows.
But you try to ride that even-keeled middle ground.”
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