The Colorado Rockies offense has been dormant to start the 2019 season. Through five games, the Rockies are 2-3 and have lost three in a row following back-to-back victories to start the year.
A primary reason Colorado has struggled is a lack of production from their offense.
The Rockies have been outscored by their opponents 21-15 through the first handful of games this season. It appears the same offensive struggles that plagued the Rockies at the end of last season are still problematic in the early stages of 2019.
Throughout their struggles this season, the Rockies experienced a scoreless drought that extended to 17 consecutive innings before Nolan Arenado drove home a run in Colorado’s 7-1 loss vs. the Tampa Bay Rays Monday night.
The team is hitting .239 collectively and ranks in the middle of the pack around the league. That said, the offensive performance of the club through the first two games has padded their stats through their recent struggles. Of the Rockies 15 runs this season, 12 have come in the first two games of the season.
Most notably, Trevor Story is off to a slow start, posting a .105 batting average, paired with Ian Desmond who is hitting merely .118. Additionally, Colorado has struggled to string hits together in sequences which has resulted in only sporadic hits.
“We know we haven’t performed the way we want to,” Story said in a postgame interview with MLB.com’s Dawn Klemish. “We’ve certainly underperformed. But we’ve only played five games. … There’s no panic here. We’re very confident, and we know just a couple of big hits are going to turn us around.”
Colorado’s offensive output will become important especially if their pitching beyond Kyle Freeland and German Marquez is lukewarm.
Jon Gray was solid in his first start, but received no run support from his team. Both Tyler Anderson and Chad Bettis struggled in their opening starts; however, the Rockies offense was unable to overcome the pitching woes. The early season ailments resulted in the Rockies splitting a series with the Marlins that they should have won handsomely given each team’s preseason expectations.
While the Rockies are less than 10 games into the season, there are trends forming that will be interesting to follow as they round out their series against the Rays and head back home for a six-game homestand. The difficulties the Rockies have dealt with could very well be preseason jitters, but in an ultra-competitive National League, the club does not have much time to spare and needs to improve their offense swiftly.
