DENVER • Without the proper context of what’s been happening with these Rockies, who live next door to the edge, Sunday’s dramatics at Coors Field would seem like a one-off oddity.

Hey, they walked-off the Dodgers — on a walk by Chris “Good” Iannetta with two outs in the ninth inning. How crazy is that? Plus, it kept the ol’ Rox smack dab in the middle of a pennant chase. Cool!

Then you grab Ryan “Game-Winner” McMahon to see what he thinks. It was McMahon who, less than 24 hours earlier, had called his walk-off homer “the greatest night of my life.” So I had to ask: Prior to that glorious three-run bomb Saturday, what had been the greatest night of your life?

“The night before that,” when McMahon hit another game-winning home run, he said, laughing.

See what we’re getting at? This is what the Rockies are now. They are good for Colorado’s baseball soul and a threat to its heart condition. They win games 5-4 (Friday), 3-2 (Saturday) and 4-3 (Sunday). We’re not used to that kind of baseball around these hills, so it seems odd. And if the Rox knocked back a few cold ones out in the left-field bleachers, where Charlie Blackmon popped one on Sunday, they’d probably tell us it feels odd to them, too.

“I threw like a last-second touchdown in high school,” McMahon said when asked if he has a suitable comparison for this weekend. “Maybe that was it.”

The phrase “late-inning magic” was tossed around the home team’s clubhouse after the Rockies frustrated the Dodgers again, 4-3, in front of 40,559 giddy fans on Sunday. “Magic” is probably a bit much, but you’d have to admit it did feel that way.

“It felt like we were going to win,” said Chad Bettis, who gave the Rox one of the most important starts of the year, a calculated three-hitter over 6 1/3 innings.

“Whatever that late-inning magic is, we have it right now,” Bettis added.

“He had a shutout into the seventh,” manager Bud Black said. “That’s pretty damn good.”

There’s a flip side to this new kind of baseball. The only teams left to play are really good teams; Colorado’s remaining opponents represent the third-toughest schedule in baseball. So if the Rockies are to hang around, hang around with the Dodgers and Diamondbacks, who now lead the Rox by only 1.5 games, a couple things will need to happen: Black must be good enough that he’s in the mix for Manager of the Year when it’s over, and the Rockies are going to need more than baby faces and fan favorites coming off the bench.

On the first one: Black had Carlos Gonzalez ready and waiting to pinch hit for Iannetta with the bases loaded in the ninth. Repeat: Black had the option of CarGo with the bases loaded in the ninth. “As you know,” Black made certain that we noticed. Instead, the skipper stuck with Iannetta, who got the count to 3-1 and laid off a 94-mph sinker that fell out of the strike zone.

Iannetta explained his patience this way: “If I don’t get the job done, we go to the next inning. It’s not live-or-die. If he (Dodgers reliever Dylan Floro) doesn’t get the job done, game’s over.”

It’s my guess Black also figured that Iannetta would be patient enough to possibly draw a game-winning walk, while we all know CarGo’s going up trying to poke one into the party deck.

Black explained his trust in Iannetta this way: “I just liked the way Chris has been feeling at the plate in this series.” Trusted his gut. Nice. The manager has a tough job coming up, and he must keep it up.

And on the second one: In the ninth inning of a tie game between two pennant chasers, the Dodgers yanked Manny Machado from the lineup. They liked the options on their bench better than they liked the All-Star slugger who could command a $300 million-plus contract next year. After watching this series you almost expect the Dodgers to bring Justin Turner, Max Muncy, Hank Aaron and Jesus off the bench.

Must be nice. And that’s what the Rockies are dealing with here. It must be almost time to call up Matt Holliday from AAAlbuquerque, because they’re going to need some juice off the bench.

Like we were saying, the next six weeks are going be like this memorable series against the Dodgers: a lot of fun, a lot of stress, and teetering either way on a one-run game in the ninth.

(Contact Gazette sports columnist Paul Klee at paul.klee@gazettedev.gazette.com or on Twitter at @bypaulklee.)