Rockies' Eddie Butler eats dirt after stumbling twice around third base

Colorado Rockies pitcher Eddie Butler had a bittersweet night on Friday.

The rookie right-hander pitched relatively well for Colorado, allowing three runs on six hits over his six innings of work. A line that actually would have been much better if not for the fourth inning, when Cincinnati's offense tagged him for all three runs.

Overall, the performance was nothing to hang his head over. Unfortunately, though, it just wasn't good enough for Butler to earn the victory. He ended up taking a no-decision in Colorado's eventual 6-5 victory, though in its own twisted way that was partially Butler's fault, and not for anything he did while pitching.

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Hey, we said this was bittersweet for Butler. Allow us to add strange and unfortunate to the description, along with hilarious.

Butler actually reached base in the fifth inning thanks to his first career hit. It was a line drive in the boxscore, but a 10-foot bunt that Cincinnati couldn't handle in reality. Either way, he reached, and the Rockies were set up for a big inning with one run already in and two more runners on base.

Charlie Blackmon followed with a single, which scored another run and sent Butler to second. Then, All-Star D.J. LeMahieu hit a deep drive to right field and that one-hopped off the manual scoreboard in right. That should have scored Butler easily, but it appears he waited to tag up, which was a bad read on his part. Then, to make matters worse, Butler slipped as he rounded third base, got back to his feet, then fell again as he ran toward home.

The old double whammy, plus a face full of dirt, plus the added insult of being tagged out several feet from home plate.

Oh, the humanity.

In reality, the Rockies easily could have scored two runs on the play and at that point taken a 4-3 lead. Blackmon was charging hard all the way from first base and has more than enough speed to close out those final 90 feet. Unfortunately, you're not allowed to lap teammates on the base paths, so he was anchored to third while the entire stadium gasped in shock and then groaned in acceptance.

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It was so Rockies. Yet amazingly, the Rockies still found a way to win in the ninth when Cincinnati's Ryan Mattheus wild-pitched Charlie Blackmon for the walkoff.

Yeah, Blackmon finally got his 90 feet. And the baseball world just looked on in horror and amusement.

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Mark Townsend is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at bigleaguestew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Townie813