DENVER — We’ll have a bit of sunshine to start your Saturday with clouds quickly increasing by the afternoon. Look for scattered showers and storms to arrive just after lunchtime. So far, it doesn’t look like any will turn severe.

Daytime highs will be a bit below average, with highs in the mid-80s on Saturday. An even bigger cooldown arrives Sunday, with highs only reaching the mid- to upper-70s.

Storms make a comeback on Sunday afternoon too, with heavy rain falling in some spots. The National Weather Service in Boulder was calling for a half-inch of rain on the Palmer Divide, and increased flooding chances in Colorado’s burn areas.

Enjoy the rain and break from the heat. These weekend temperatures will be about 5 to 10 degrees below normal for mid-July!

We’re also likely to see some Canadian wildfire smoke drift into the state this evening and stick around through Sunday.

Warmer, drier weather is back by the middle of next week. Highs return to the 90s by Wednesday.

DENVER WEATHER LINKS: Hourly forecast | Radars | Traffic | Weather Page | 24/7 Weather Stream

Click here to watch the Denver7 live weather stream.

Jake Cave’s juice launched the Rockies to a comeback win over the Giants on Friday at Coors Field.

The veteran outfielder, a stop-gap on a one-year contract for a team in transition, was a difference maker again to lead Colorado to a victory in the first game out of the All-Star break. Cave scored the tying run in the seventh after roping a leadoff pinch-hit double, then the next inning, he gave Chatfield alum Tyler Rogers a rude welcome home via the deciding three-run homer.

Cave’s clutch hits, along with another homer from the red-hot Brenton Doyle, made up for a slow offensive start in the 7-3 triumph over San Francisco in the series opener in front of 40,115.

“The way Cave plays baseball is what we want the whole team to do,” right-hander Cal Quantrill said. “He has great energy, and his approach and ability to stay in the game mentally and come into the game late and make that kind of impact is special.”

The Giants scored first in the second inning on a two-out, sinking line drive to left by Thairo Estrada. Sean Bouchard charged in and dove at the ball, but it went under his glove and rolled to the wall. That resulted in a two-RBI triple for a 2-0 visitors lead.

San Francisco added on the next inning, with Patrick Bailey’s RBI groundout to push the score to 3-0.

Meanwhile, the Rockies had just one hit through the first five innings as they struggled to get anything going against rookie Kyle Harrison. The southpaw struck out six, and Colorado also couldn’t capitalize on four walks.

After Quantrill polished off his quality start by working around Mike Yastrzemski’s single in the sixth, the Rockies offense finally came to life against right-hander Randy Rodriguez.

Elias Diaz was grazed by a pitch — and initially wanted to stay in the box before jogging down to first with some prodding by manager Bud Black from the dugout. Doyle picked up where he left off before the All-Star break to help out Quantrill, who rebounded from his shortest outing of the year in a two-inning dud in Cincinnati.

“It’s hard to be angry when I start and the team wins,” Quantrill said. “It won’t go down as my favorite start this year, but I battled through those last three innings, and I thought I gave us a chance. We were able to get it done late.”

Doyle blasted Rodriguez’s elevated fastball 434 feet into the left-field seats, his fifth homer over his last seven games. The no-doubter from Doyle, who has nine homers in July while slashing .429/.509/1.082 and continuing to emerge as a franchise pillar, got Colorado within shouting distance at 3-2.

“Doyle, doing what he’s doing right now, is one of the best players in baseball,” Jake Cave proclaimed.

In the seventh, right-hander Tyler Kinley ran into trouble when the Giants loaded the bases off him with two hits and a walk. But southpaw Jalen Beeks bailed Kinley out by striking out Michael Conforto on a full-count, top-of-the-zone cutter.

Colorado then tied the game in the bottom of the inning against right-hander Ryan Walker, taking advantage of Cave’s double down the right-field line. With two outs, Ezequiel Tovar rolled over on an infield single in the hole between third and shortstop, and Matt Champan proceeded to make an errant throw to first.

After an intentional walk to Ryan McMahon and a walk to Diaz, Doyle came up again, but grounded to third into a fielder’s choice in end the threat and keep the game tied 3-3.

But the Rockies finally took the lead in the eighth, after Brendan Rodgers’ leadoff infield single and Michael Toglia’s double off the submariner Rogers set up Cave’s 410-foot blast to right center on a hanging slider. Cave pimped the shot out of the box off, pointing and yelling to the dugout as he took his time trotting down the first base line.

After Rogers was lifted, Tovar added on to the big inning with a homer down the left field line off Luke Jackson. It was Tovar’s 15th dinger of the year and third homer in his last two games as he continues to climb out of a recent slump.

“It was a rough patch there for Tovar for a while,” Bud Black said. “He was hitting .290, .295, and slipped all the way down to near .260, so a pretty big drop. But he stayed the course and he didn’t waiver from his routine and his process, and he didn’t panic.”

With another big night of slugging, the Rockies have scored 24 of their last 25 runs via the homer, including 20 straight runs spanning from Toglia’s fifth-inning home run on July 11 at Cincinnati through Doyle’s home run on Friday in the sixth. That’s the longest streak of consecutive runs scored on homer in franchise history.

Colorado also tied a franchise record with 21 homers through its last seven games, a feat the club also achieved in 2018 and 1995. With the way the Rockies are hitting, both Quantrill and Cave believe Colorado (35-63) can play spoiler in the second half. Cave said the club has “a good chance to make some people mad.”

“We need to do everything we can to be a very competitive baseball team the rest of the way,” Quantrill added. “We want to be a team that other teams don’t want to play. We want to be a team that some of the teams in the playoff hunt don’t want to see on the schedule. If we can do that, we’re in a good spot.”

Saturday’s pitching matchup

Giants RHP Logan Webb (7-7, 3.47) at Rockies LHP Kyle Freeland (1-3, 6.00)

6:10 p.m. Saturday, Coors Field

TV: Rockies.TV (streaming); Comcast/Xfinity (channel 1262); DirecTV (683); Spectrum (130, 445, 305, 435 or 445, depending on region).

Radio: 850 AM/94.1 FM

Freeland’s been money since returning June 23 from a left elbow strain. In his four quality starts since, the Thomas Jefferson product has a 1.71 ERA and the Rockies are 3-1. He’s also pitched into the seventh inning in each of his last three outings. And he’s been excellent at home this year overall, with a 1.50 ERA in three starts and no homers allowed. Freeland has a solid track record against the Giants, going 7-6 with a 3.93 ERA in 22 career starts. Webb’s recent momentum, however, is the opposite of Freeland’s. He allowed seven runs in five innings against Toronto in his final start before the All-Star break, and in the All-Star Game he surrendered three runs in an ugly third inning that swung the momentum back toward the American League. In eight starts at Coors Field, he has a 4.24 ERA.

Pitching probables

Sunday: Giants RHP Jordan Hicks (4-6, 3.79) at Rockies RHP Ryan Feltner (1-9, 5.36), 1:10 p.m.

Monday: Red Sox TBA at Rockies LHP Austin Gomber (2-6, 4.61), 6:40 p.m.

Tuesday: Red Sox TBA at Rockies RHP German Marquez (0-0, 6.75), 6:40 p.m.

Want more Rockies news? Sign up for the Rockies Insider to get all our MLB analysis.

Originally Published: July 19, 2024 at 9:41 p.m.

The murder charges against a teenager accused in a high-profile shooting three years ago should be dismissed because Denver District Attorney Beth McCann made inappropriate comments to the news media about the case, defense attorneys argued this week.

Remi Cordova, now 17, was 14 when he was arrested and accused of killing 32-year-old Pamela Cabriales at a red light on West Colfax Avenue on Feb. 20, 2021. Prosecutors allege Cordova opened fire with an AR-15 rifle after a fender bender and killed Cabriales in an attempt to earn status within the Eastside Crips gang.

The man driving the car that night — Neshan Johnson, then 18 — was convicted of second-degree murder in Cabriales’ death and sentenced to 35 years in prison after jurors found he gave the younger Cordova permission to start shooting.

Cordova was initially charged as a juvenile but McCann later moved his case to adult court. Cordova’s public defenders argued in a Thursday court filing that McCann made several comments to the media that violated her ethical obligations as a prosecutor and a court order limiting pre-trial publicity in the case.

“Ms. McCann’s misconduct is shocking to the universal sense of justice and violates fundamental fairness,” wrote James Zorich, deputy state public defender. “By willfully and intentionally making malicious, inflammatory, improper extrajudicial statements to the media, Ms. McCann disregarded her ethical obligations and violated Mr. Cordova’s constitutional rights, depriving him of the chance of receiving a fair trial by an impartial jury.”

McCann declined to comment through a spokesman Friday.

The state’s professional rules for prosecutors prohibit district attorneys from making “extrajudicial comments that have a substantial likelihood of heightening public condemnation of the accused,” but make an exception to that rule for statements that are “necessary to inform the public of the nature and extent of the prosecutor’s action.”

Zorich took issue with McCann calling the killing a “cold-blooded murder” and saying she moved the case to adult court in part because of the “absolute brutal savagery of this shooting” during an interview with Fox31 in October 2023. McCann also told members of the media that a person like Cordova should be put in prison for a “long, long time,” the motion reads.

The motion quotes McCann as saying: “‘Unfortunately, he is capable of killing someone in a very, you know, just cold-blooded way with no indication of remorse or concern or anything of that nature.’”

The motion to dismiss also cites a Denver Post story that relied entirely on information presented in open court during a public jury trial, as well as reporting by 9News, Denver7 and Westword, including a cover illustration Westword later apologized for. The defense attorneys took issue even with stories that did not cite McCann as a source of information and pieces that did not name Cordova.

They called for the case against Cordova to be dismissed as a sanction against McCann’s “outrageous” misconduct. Cordova is set to stand trial in August on charges of first-degree murder and attempted murder in the killing. He is also due in court next week for a motions hearing.

The call for sanctions comes weeks after 11th Judicial District Attorney Linda Stanley went through a public disciplinary hearing that centered on comments she made to the media and other members of the public during the since-dropped prosecution of Barry Morphew in the murder of his wife.

The state alleges Stanley’s comments in that case and another were inappropriate and that she violated professional rules for attorneys. Stanley could be disbarred if a disciplinary panel sustains the charges against her. That decision is pending.

Sign up to get crime news sent straight to your inbox each day.

Originally Published: July 19, 2024 at 3:04 p.m.