On a chilly Tuesday night in late May at Coors Field, with steady rain falling amid a dwindling crowd, Ian Desmond and Chris Iannetta did the cold, dirty work needed for a team to keep bootstrapping its way back into the playoff picture.

The game against Arizona sat tied 2-2, and Diamondbacks starter Merrill Kelly quickly recorded the first two outs of the seventh inning. But Desmond, working his way back from an 0-2 count, singled before Iannetta got just enough of a hanging breaking ball for a two-run homer to left.

Iannetta’s stroke was Colorado’s decisive blow in a 6-2 win over the Diamondbacks, as the Rockies (26-27) also capitalized on a much-needed quality start by Antonio Senzatela. It was the fourth win in the last five games for Colorado.

“That was the biggest swing of the night, for sure, and then Ryan McMahon added on (an inning later),” manager Bud Black said. “Chris is capable with the power like that, and four homers this year in less than 100 at-bats is a really good sign.”

Boxscore

Even though Senzatela ended up with six solid innings with two runs earned, he was stressed early and often, starting with two Diamondbacks singles in the first.

The right-hander worked around those, and a Tim Locastro double in the second inning, before Eduardo Escobar made Senzatela pay for elevated pitches in the third. The third baseman continued his recent torrid pace at the plate, homering 416 feet to center field for a 1-0 visitors lead.

Colorado took the advantage right back in the fourth inning, using a wild pitch to score Raimel Tapia and a Daniel Murphy RBI double to make it 2-1. Tapia’s at-bat was the spark for the inning, as he hustled out a bloop jam-job to center for a double, advanced to third on a groundout and then scored on an errant ball four to Nolan Arenado.

Senzatela, coming off an eight-run disaster in Pittsburgh, mostly worked around the nine hits and a couple of walks surrendered. He got the big outs when he needed to, although Escobar tagged him for an RBI single in the fifth to even the game 2-2 prior to Iannetta’s homer.

“He got out of a couple jams, and he got to the pitcher a couple times with guys on base so that was big,” Black said. “There were a couple big punch outs there, too, and a couple of the hits were soft.”

Iannetta added that Senzatela’s fastball command returned Tuesday night against Arizona.

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The bats then supplied some insurance in the eighth via McMahon’s two-run double to push the score to 6-2. Colorado plated all of its runs with two outs and the weather worsened as the game wore on.

“Down on the field, it was pretty windy, and with that and the rain it was pretty gnarly,” Black said.

Meanwhile the Rockies bullpen was solid in the wet conditions following Senzatela, with Jairo Diaz tossing one scoreless inning while getting his first career win and Chad Bettis earning his first career save via two innings of scoreless work.

With a victory Wednesday, Colorado can get back to .500 for the first time since March 31 as the Rockies have also won a season-high three straight games at home.

“The key right now is to get back to .500, because I’ve said it time and time again, to make the playoffs, you can’t get hot the whole year,” Iannetta said. “There’s too many games … you have to play .500 ball a lot of the time and then get hot in a couple short spurts.”