After beginning the season with several complete and dominant performances in all phases of the game, that type of play has been hard to come by for the Colorado Rockies over the past week.

The Rockies’ rotation largely remained solid, but either bad bullpen work or a struggling offense—or, at times, both—contributed to a 1-5 stretch that culminated in another series defeat at home, this time at the hands of the Texas Rangers. Colorado’s bullpen, which had a difficult time getting Arizona Diamondbacks hitters out earlier in the week, largely performed better against the Rangers. But it was one pitch out of the right hand of Carlos Estévez on Saturday night that really decided the series. Rangers newcomer Derek Dietrich, who wasn’t even in the organization when these two teams faced each other in the opening series of 2020, took a first pitch offering and deposited it deep into the left field pavilion. It was the first home run of the season allowed Estévez, who has been solid this season but not really with the benefit of missing many bats, but it was a three-run shot that made what was just a one-run deficit too much to overcome for a Rockies offense that tried to rally late but came up a couple of runs short.

Prior to those final couple of innings Saturday, the Rockies’ offense didn’t do much of anything against Rangers pitchers. For the second time this season, Lance Lynn flummoxed the Rockies’ offense. To one-up his Opening Day start in which he didn’t allow a run in six innings of work, Lynn tossed a complete game on Friday at Coors Field, holding the Rockies to just two hits while striking out six with no walks. The Rangers’ ace has struck out 15 batters, walked four, and allowed just four hits in 15 innings of two-run ball against Colorado in 2020. The Rockies followed by grounding out 12 times against Texas starter Kyle Gibson, who allowed just two runs in 6 1/3 innings, on Saturday before finally breaking out against Kolby Allard in the finale.

The Rockies on Sunday reached double digits in runs for the first time in a game this season, riding a three-hit performance from Raimel Tapia and getting two hits apiece from Garrett Hampson, Trevor Story, Charlie Blackmon, and Matt Kemp en route to a 10-6 win to avoid being swept. Blackmon also walked twice, effectively busting out of an 0-for-11 slump that started Wednesday against the D-backs and finally ended on Saturday when he tripled to lead off the eighth inning. Blackmon is hitting an incredible .446/.489/.663 through the Rockies’ first 21 games, and he’s appeared in each of them. Still, for Blackmon—assuming he continues his pace of 3.95 at bats per game—to finish the season with a batting average at or above the magical .400 mark, he’d need to go approximately 58-for-154 (a .377 average) over the final 39 contests.

Of course, as has been the case several times this season for the Rockies, finishing off the game wasn’t easy. Jairo Díaz, the Rockies’ de facto closer with both Wade Davis and Scott Oberg on the injured list, allowed two runs—though neither were earned due to a Ryan McMahon fielding error—and walked three batters in the ninth. That forced Colorado manager Bud Black to call upon Estévez to get the final out, which he did, albeit not without sustaining an apparent injury caused by a 102 mph comebacker that the reliever was able to recover and toss to first base. Black hinted after the game about the possibility of making a change in the closer’s spot, although he didn’t say who might take it over. Daniel Bard, who allowed two runs in the series but has struck out 13 batters and walked only one in 11 innings of work this season, appears to be the best choice.

Whatever the Rockies decide to do about their increasing bullpen issues, they’ll have to act quickly and perhaps not under the best set of circumstances; Colorado has road series against the Houston Astros and Los Angeles Dodgers, with a quick two-game home set against the former sandwiched between the two, on the docket for this week.

Sunday Extras

  • Jon Gray looked much better on Sunday than he did in just about any of his starts leading up to it. Though he struggled with velocity separation between his fastball and changeup early and got into a quick hole, the right-hander recovered with a simplified approach that befuddled the Rangers over his final few innings.”I just shortened my stride up and it was so much easier to work with my hand out in front of me,” Gray told reporters after the game. “That was giving me my put away pitches.”

    Gray threw mostly fastballs and sliders during the final few innings of his seven-inning start, which resulted in his first win of the season. He struck out a season-high seven batters, which almost equaled his 2020 total (nine) coming into the game.

  • Trevor Story came into the week entrenched in a slump but came out of in good shape. The Rockies’ shortstop went 12-for-28 on the home stand and now owns a .326/.396/.616 line overall.Story hasn’t been himself defensively this season, having made several errors at critical moments, and the advanced metrics bear that out; he’s about 10 runs below average on a full-season pace. But the fifth-year star has cut his strikeout rate in half while boasting a career-best walk percentage, signs that he’s really coming into his own at the plate. The glove should come back, and when it does, Story could be in an elite tier when it comes to the league’s most valuable contributors in all facets of the game.
  • Ryan Castellani was good in his second big league appearance, striking out seven batters in 4 2/3 innings of work in the Rockies’ loss on Friday. Castellani yielded only two hard-hit balls during his first four innings of work before the Rangers tagged him with a home run and a hard groundout in his final frame.Nick Solak, who hit the homer and doubled earlier in the game, remains the only MLB player with a hit off of Castellani. Everyone else is a combined 0-for-26 with three walks and a hit by pitch.