After blowing a six run lead in Friday night’s loss to the Milwaukee Brewers, the Rockies and a red-hot Trevor Story rebounded with a smooth 4-0 victory Saturday.
Story homered twice in the contest, finishing the night 3-of-4 with 4 RBI. After the monstrous performance at the plate, the Rockies young shortstop now currently leads all MLB shortstops with 32 RBI.
Story’s first home run came in the first inning when he followed up a triple from Nolan Arenado with a 410 foot rocket to deep center field. The home run was Story’s ninth of the season and gave the Rockies an early 2-0 lead.
Then In the fifth inning, Story followed up Arenado’s double with another two-run dinger to put the Rockies up 4-0.
Along with Story’s big night at the plate, Kyle Freeland delivered 6 ⅓ innings of scoreless baseball and really set the tone for the victory with efficient and aggressive pitching.
In Freeland’s first trip through the Milwaukee lineup, the Colorado native recorded six ground ball outs and three strikeouts. In total, the second-year starter threw first-pitch strikes against 18-of-27 hitters faced and struck out six in a game where it was obvious that the Brewers hitters were out of rhythm at the plate.
Freeland did create some traffic in the seventh inning, walking two of the first three batters before being pulled by manager Walt Weiss. A pair of relievers had the young pitcher’s back though, as Bryan Shaw and Mike Dunn each recorded an out to help keep Freeland off the board. Over his last four starts, Freeland has only given up a total of five runs in 28 innings pitched.
Adam Ottavino took care of things in the eighth, shutting down the Brewers with a 1-2-3 inning, before Wade Davis put the final nail in the coffin in the ninth.
The shutout victory is Colorado’s fifth of the season which is a club record through the first 40 games of a season.
The Rockies (22-18) and Brewers (23-17) will conclude the three-game series Sunday afternoon at Coors Field. (1:10 PM). Jon Gray is scheduled to be on the bump for Colorado and will to go at least seven innings for a third consecutive start.
