Who is this Rockies team?
Through 70 games, even Colorado can’t seem to figure themselves out, sitting at 34-36 while thinking about what could be after losing multiple games they should have won this year already.
Saturday afternoon in Arlington, Texas was no different; Kyle Freeland pitched as close to an ace as the Rockies could hope, throwing six scoreless innings before he gave up two runs in the seventh and the bullpen allowed three more in the Rockies 5-2 loss to the Rangers.
This was a game the Rockies should have won — Freeland ended up allowing two runs in the seventh, but battled through that inning and Colorado was tied 2-2 — but the pen, Harrison Musgrave specifically, allowed three runs in the eighth for the Rangers win.
Colorado — whose offense has been sporadic-at-best this year — took the early lead in the second when Ian Desmond walked, Mike Minor of Texas balked, and Carlos Gonzalez singled to score Desmond.
In the sixth, the Rockies pushed that lead to 2-0 as D.J. LeMahieu singled, and after a Charlie Blackmon ground out moved LeMahieu up to second, along with a wild pitch, Nolan Arenado’s sacrifice fly send LeMahieu across the plate.
Outside of those two allowed runs, Minor was even better than Freeland; the Rangers starter went 7.0 innings, allowing two runs with six strikeouts.
Freeland cruised through six innings, but it only took a few extra base hits in that seventh inning to end his should-be win. Leadoff batter Rougned Odor smoked a triple into center field and Isiah Kiner-Falefa followed that up with a double to put the Rangers first run on the board. Then, after a mound visit calmed Freeland, he earned two outs but also gave up a single to Jose Trevino to plate Kiner-Falefa.
Freeland stayed in, finishing the seventh inning, but all that hard work was squandered as the game was tied up 2-2 at that point.
Colorado’s eighth inning was over quickly, in one-two-three fashion, while Texas put three runs on the board.
Musgrave walked the first batter he faced, then gave up a single and a triple — the last hit to Adrian Beltre — and just like that, the Rockies trailed 4-2. Musgrave was then pulled for Bryan Shaw, who gave up a sacrifice fly to Odor, ending the game 5-2.
The Rockies relied on their pitching to start the year, as their offense was terrible. And even though they got another quality start out of Freeland, the offense — which has been up-and-down — was again putrid, going 5-31 (.161) combined at the plate.
Colorado has now gone 2-7 in their last nine games, falling from first place all the way down to third in the NL West, 5.5 games back of the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Tomorrow’s game (first pitch at 2:05 p.m. MT) will decide the three-game series against the Rangers, who are 16 games under .500. Simply, the Rockies need a win in the worst way tomorrow.
