Antonio Senzatela started out Friday night on fire in Arizona, but then burned to ashes in the fifth inning.
After starting out with a strikeout and two double plays through three innings, Senzatela gave the Diamondbacks the lead in the fourth inning when Christian Walker hit a two-run home run before Arizona poured it on to win 8-0.
And now, onto our takeaways.
Pitching shines in Arizona early
Antonio Senzatela was on top of his game to begin, but the veteran Zack Greinke had even more to offer for the D-Backs. For Senza, he continued a hot streak of performing lights-out on the road, boasting a lifetime 2.57 road ERA within the NL West in nine games. Well, that was until the fifth inning.
Through the first three innings, “Senza” was pitching with a lot of life in his arm, hitting the mid-90s repeatedly, and enjoyed a “Really, really great rhythm,” as Manager Bud Black said before the fourth inning. But, in that fourth inning, Senza gave up a two-run home run to Christian Walker — leaving a fast ball high — as Arizona took the 2-0 lead.
The bleeding continued for Senzatela in the fifth inning, as he gave up a single, a walk and then a double to Alex Avila to push the D-Backs’ lead to 4-0. With the bases loaded and one out, Senzatela was pulled from the contest and finished going 4.1 innings, giving up seven hits and seven earned runs with two walks and only one strikeout.
For Greinke, he wasn’t as dominant in terms of hitting high speeds on the gun, but the movement on his curve/off-speed stuff controlled Colorado for much of the game. Greinke went seven innings with four hits given up and nine strikeouts, getting the better of the younger pitcher and the Rockies batters.
Rockies hit rock-bottom from the plate
Colorado started warm from the plate — with two early hits — but then fell colder than a 14er in January. The Rockies struck out 13 times in the game and left 12 on base. To make matters worse, four of those were runners in scoring position. In fact, All-Star Game starter Nolan Arenado struggled through three strikeouts in the loss.
The Rockies needed to take advantage of Senza’s early hot pitching by putting at least one run on the board. Instead, they couldn’t and the starter fell apart, too, leaving the Rockies vulnerable to the Diamondbacks’ wrath.
Trevor Story flashes the leather and the arm
Story was out for the second half of June because of an injured right thumb, but he came back to the team on Tuesday against Houston. On Friday night, Story was part of two double plays. One was a 3-6-3 between him and first baseman Daniel Murphy. The other was a more traditional 6-4-3 from Story to Ryan McMahon and onto Murphy. Both of those came in the second and third innings, as part of Senza’s hot start and before the beat-down began.
Next up: The Rockies entered Friday night on a three-game losing streak and now that streak continues and grows to four games. Colorado and Arizona play Game 2 of the series on Saturday night, with first pitch scheduled for 8:10 p.m. MT at Chase Field. Jon Gray gets the start for Colorado against
