Nolan Arenado was just a bit player at Coors Field Tuesday night. Until he swung his magic bat in the seventh inning, made the Rockies pay for Ryan McMahon’s costly error, and helped propel the Cardinals to a 9-6 comeback win over the Rockies.

Arenado, the former Rockies star third baseman, hit a three-run double off Dinelson Lamet in the Cardinals’ four-run seventh, tying the game 6-6 and turning Coors into Busch Stadium West as the red-clad fans went into a frenzy.

St. Louis won the game in the ninth against closer Pierce Johnson on a leadoff homer by Nolan Gorman, followed by a walk by Brendan Donovan, a sacrifice bunt by Tommy Edman and an RBI single by Paul Goldschmidt. Tyler O’Neill’s single scored Goldschmidt to give St. Louis its final three-run cushion.

“The bullpen has been a little bit inconsistent, for sure,” Rockies manager Bud Black said. “This was a tough one for Pierce. And I’ll say this again, the walk has come back to bite us out of the bullpen. It’s something we talked about in spring training and it’s still going to be a point of emphasis as we move through this.

“You have to throw strikes. We have good enough stuff out in the ‘pen where we have to challenge guys in the strike zone. There are too many walks, and with that, too many bad counts.”

Arenado was just glad that the Cardinals finally delivered some of the big hits they have been lacking.

“Obviously, (Goldschmidt) had that great at-bat just before me and I just wanted to keep it going,” Arenado said of the seventh-inning rally. “He got me fired up with his at-bat and I was like, ‘All right, it’s my turn to do something.’ I was just trying to follow his lead and luckily I got a decent count and I laid off some sliders.”

But truthfully, Arenado should never have had the chance to play the hero. The Rockies should have been out of the inning but McMahon botched Edman’s grounder to second to load the bases with two outs. In came Lamet in relief of Jake Bird, and Lamet promptly walked Goldschmidt to force in the Cardinals’ first run of the inning. Then Arenado ripped Lamet’s 3-1 fastball to the left-field wall.

McMahon was downcast after the game.

“I expect to make that (play) and that one really changed the outcome of this game,” McMahon said. “I think we would have gotten out of a little jam right there if I make that play. I just got over there but I misplayed it, it kicked up on me a little bit and it led to their inning.

“It’s going to hurt tonight, but I’ll think about it a little bit more, then try to forget about it, come back tomorrow, and try to win a series.”

This was a game the Rockies squandered, especially given the gritty performance of starter Kyle Freeland.

“The common theme for Kyle is that his location has been solid,” Black said. “Using the inside part of the plate has been really good. He’s pitching — bottom line. He’s disrupting their timing and he’s throwing the ball very well.”

The left-hander prides himself on being able to out-tough opposing pitchers at Coors. Such was the case early Tuesday night. Although Freeland gave up his first two homers of the season (six hits overall) and needed 83 pitches (50 strikes) to get through six innings, he made big pitches when he had to, including groundball double plays in the second and sixth innings.

He was rewarded when the Rockies’ offense came to life in a five-run fifth inning against Miles Mikolas, giving the Rockies an ill-fated 6-2 lead.

However, Freeland’s quest for a franchise record ended quickly. He entered the game with a scoreless streak of 12 2/3 innings to begin the season. And he opened the game by striking out Donovan to extend his streak to 13 innings, tying Jason Jennings (2001) for the second-longest streak by a Rockies starter to begin a season. The streak ended with the next batter, Edman. The Cardinals’ shortstop hit a 374-foot, pop-fly homer to right. Jhoulys Chacín holds the Rockies record at 14 1/3 scoreless innings to open his 2010 season.

St. Louis took a 2-0 lead in the third on a solo homer to left by designated hitter Juan Yepez, who drove Freeland’s 1-0 curveball into the seats.

“I’m somewhat happy with the outing,” said Freeland, who has an 0.96 ERA after three starts. “I was effectively wild tonight, I guess you could say, but I was able to keep them off-balance and get outs and weak contact. And solo shots aren’t going to do too much damage to a starter or define a game.”

Freeland said that he and Black talked about Freeland going out of the seventh inning but Freeland said his legs “weren’t feeling too great tonight” so Black decided to pull Freeland.

Mikolas entered the game carrying the weight of some ugly history at Coors Field. He had a 13.50 ERA in four games (three starts) at Coors, that ERA was inflated by one of the worst defeats of his career. Last season in LoDo, he gave up a career-high 10 runs and 14 hits in a 16-5 loss. His 2 2/3 innings pitched were the second-fewest in his 117 career starts.

The 2022 All-Star pitched well until the fifth when Colorado ripped him for five hits, including a three-run homer by McMahon, followed by a solo blast by C.J. Cron to left field that measured 479 feet.

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