All good things must come to an end, and for the Rockies, their six-game road winning streak came to an abrupt halt after young starting pitcher German Marquez was batted around like a piñata by the Diamondbacks’ bats in what would eventually finish as a 2-8 loss.
Marquez, who came into the game tied for second on the team in wins (10) and first in strikeouts (137), didn’t do much of the latter, and gave himself no chance for the former on Wednesday night. In only 3-2/3 innings, Marquez allowed 11 hits — his season-high — four earned runs, and only struck out a single batter in a 70-pitch outing that took most of the drama out of the game early.
To be fair, the Rockies’ offense had all of one hit — a double by shortstop Trevor Story — at the time Marquez was yanked from the mound, so it’s not as if they were really any better than their wayward starter on the hot, Arizona night. Remarkably, if it’s possible to ‘scatter’ 11 hits, that’s what Marquez managed to do; the Diamondbacks only scored a single run in each of the four innings that he pitched.
The Rockies, down 4-0 when Marquez exited, weren’t really out of the game at that point, but couldn’t work their way back into it; D.J. LeMahieu’s solo homer in the sixth inning was Colorado’s first tally of the evening. The game finally slipped away for good when Rockies reliever Carlos Estevez had a disastrous seventh inning; Estevez only got a single out while surrendering four hits, a walk and three earned runs before being removed by manager Bud Black.
The beauty of baseball is that there’s always another game tomorrow, and after an outing in which the entire team looked worn-out and flat for the first pitch, the Rockies could bounce back in Thursday’s matinee behind starter Chad Bettis and return to Denver with an astounding 7-1 road trip against the top two teams in the NL West.
