The Colorado Rockies’ pitching staff continued its tremendous start to 2020 and the offense showed off its resilience en route to another series victory, this one over the rival San Francisco Giants in a four-game set at Coors Field.
Colorado’s rotation posted quality starts in each of the final three games of the series, and the bullpen allowed just three earned runs in 10 total innings of work to, on two occasions, give the team’s offense a chance to make up for several timely home runs hit by the Giants. In the series opener the Rockies turned a 4-1 deficit, which was the result of a pair of home runs hit off of spot starter Chi Chi Gonzalez and one surrendered by Phillip Diehl, into a 7-4 lead with key long balls off the bats of Nolan Arenado and Chris Owings and big hits from Matt Kemp and David Dahl.
Similar heroics took place in the series finale after Kyle Freeland, up 1-0 and an out away from getting through seven scoreless innings, gave up a three-run shot to light-hitting utility player Mauricio Dubón. Owings came up big again with a double to cut the Giants’ lead to one before Daniel Murphy and Charlie Blackmon followed with a pair of two-run homers, putting the Rockies back on top, 6-3.
The three-batter minimum played into Murphy’s homer, a go-ahead shot in the bottom of the seventh inning. Former Rockies right-hander Rico Garcia was called upon by Giants manager Gabe Kapler to start the frame and quickly gave up consecutive right-on-right doubles to Owings and Garrett Hampson. Unable to pull Garcia and go with a southpaw to face the left-handed-hitting Murphy, who pinch hit for Drew Butera, Kapler watched as the Rockies regained the lead on Murphy’s long fly ball into the seats above the out-of-town scoreboard in right field.
In between the rallies, the Rockies earned a 5-2 victory in the series’ second game, one they led from start to finish on the back of Germán Marquez, who struck out nine in 7 1/3 innings of two-run ball. Colorado got a homer in that game from Nolan Arenado, who also went deep in the first and third games of the series and looks a little more like himself after a rough start to the season. The Rockies’ lone loss of the series came in Game 3 on Wednesday night when Jon Gray, after the Rox jumped out to a 2-0 lead, allowed a three-run homer to Brandon Belt in what was really his only mistake in an otherwise stellar outing.
Even with Gonzalez’s short and ineffective outing, the Rockies’ starting rotation still boasts an ERA of 2.78, which ranks sixth in baseball entering Thursday night’s slate of games. There are some concerns, such as Gray’s decrease in average fastball velocity (96.1 to 93.8 mph) and accompanying dip in strikeouts (9.0 to 3.6 K/9) compared to last season, but the unit as a whole is successfully limiting hard contact to grounders—and with an infield defense that ranks among the league’s best, that’s an effective strategy.
The bullpen—particularly Jairo Diaz, who earned a pair of saves despite allowing two runs on Monday and working around some baserunners Thursday—dealt with a little more traffic this series compared to earlier in the season. That said, the unit—outside of Wade Davis and James Pazos, who struggled mightily in the San Diego series—owns a minuscule 1.51 ERA. Perhaps most promising is that, in 13 innings of work against San Francisco, the Rockies’ bullpen issued just one walk. That will bode well going forward—especially at Coors Field, where hits are almost an inevitability.
The Rockies—now 9-3 and owners of a plus-24 run differential, which ranks second in the National League behind only the 9-4 Los Angeles Dodgers—travel to Seattle this weekend to face the 5-9 Mariners in a three-game set before returning home for two more series in Denver. Colorado will have a good shot to increase its half-game lead over the Dodgers in the NL West; Seattle has a league-worst minus-31 run differential while L.A. faces the Giants, who—even though they sit at just 6-8 after dropping three of four to the Rockies—gave the defending division champs fits just a couple of weeks ago in the opening series of the season.
