A dreadful, shutout loss to the San Francisco Giants made the Colorado Rockies’ road to the playoffs even more challenging on Wednesday.
Of course, any road trip feels long when you forget to pack the necessities. In this case, the Rockies forgot their bats — and they’d better find them on the trip down the California coast to San Diego if they want to retain control of their own postseason fate.
Rockies starter Tyler Chatwood wasn’t brilliant, giving up three earned runs in six innings, but pitched well enough for Colorado to earn the victory. With the exception of Scott Oberg’s lone run allowed, the five-man parade of relievers shut the Giants’ down.
The problem was that Matt Moore and the Giants’ bullpen stonewalled whatever pop-gun offense the Rockies could occasionally bring to bear.
Only catcher Jonathan Lucroy (3-for-4) even threatened San Francisco. Lucroy, with three singles, amounted to half of the Rockies’ offense; only Charlie Blackmon, D.J LeMahieu and Mark Reynolds had hits at all — and they had singles, as well.
In the final 16 innings of the Giants’ series, the Rockies scored exactly one run; an embarrassing showing by any measure — let alone against he team with the National League’s worst record.
The only saving grace for the Rockies was that the pursuing Brewers couldn’t take advantage; losing on a walk-off home run to the Pirates.
Now, the Rockies face another sub-par team in the Padres; if they can’t perform better than they did against the Giants, what the Brewers do won’t really matter — because the Rockies will have proven that they don’t deserve a spot in the postseason, anyway.