ROCKIES CONTINUE HOT START WITH SWEEP OF GIANTS
Freeland’s seven scoreless innings help to complete sweep
Kids sure do grow up quick these days.
That’s good news for the Rockies, who used back-to-back gems from rookie starters Antonio Senzatela and Kyle Freeland to complete a three-game sweep over San Francisco this past weekend. Colorado won 8-0 on Sunday to complete its first sweep of the Giants at Coors Field since May 2426, 2002.
The Rockies improved to 13-6, tied for the second-best start in franchise history. Only the 1997 club — 14-5 through 19 games — got out of the gate faster. Both the 2011 and 2013 Rockies opened 13-6.
It’s still very early, of course, and the Rockies’ inexperience in their rotation presents a daunting challenge, but the kids have been more than all right.
Freeland, just 23 and with a mere four games on his big-league résumé, was a little bit wide-eyed when he made his debut on April 7 at Coors Field; a six-inning gem in the Rockies’ 2-1 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers.
But Sunday afternoon in front of 42,011 fans at Coors, the Denver native pitched like a veteran who had seen it all. The left-hander blanked the Giants for seven innings and was never in major trouble.
“You continue to learn,” Freeland said. “You learn at home and you learn on the road. It’s about being comfortable in all situations.”
Saturday night, Senzatela, 22, beat the Giants for the second time in a week, tossing seven stellar innings in a 12-3 victory. He is 3-0 with a 2.08 ERA after four starts.
“Those guys don’t get rattled,” veteran first baseman Mark Reynolds said. “Freeland and ‘Senza’ have been lights out in big spots. Senzatela gave up three runs in the first inning in Frisco the other day and then threw six shutout innings. You don’t see that from rookies every day.”
Freeland, who coaxed the Giants into 12 groundball outs, gave up six hits, walked one and struck
Those guys don’t get rattled. Freeland and ‘Senza’ have been lights out in big spots.” Mark Reynolds, Rockies first baseman, on starting pitchers Kyle Freeland and Antonio Senzatela
out three Sunday. His ERA dipped to 3.32.
“His best stuff is down in the strike zone, with movement,” manager Bud Black said, crediting pitching coach Steve Foster and bullpen coach Darren Holmes for working with Freeland between starts. “When you are throwing the ball in the low 90s, with movement, you are going to get a lot of grounders. Moving forward, that should be a big part of Kyle’s game.”
Freeland faced his only minicrisis in the sixth when Hunter Pence and Buster Posey reached on two-out singles. But Freeland whiffed Brandon Crawford, who chased a nasty 3-2 slider that was well off the plate.
Freeland’s comfort zone expanded in the fourth inning when Gerardo Parra lined a two-out, two-run homer above the manual scoreboard in right field for a 3-0 Rockies lead. Parra’s second homer of the season drove in Carlos Gonzalez, who drew a walk off San Francisco starter Jeff Samardzija.
“I think he threw me a ‘splitty,’ and the only thing I tried to do was hit a good pitch in the middle (of the field),” said Parra, who went 2-for-4 with three RBIs and is hitting .333.
Colorado blew the game open with a five-run sixth. The onslaught began with a single by Nolan Arenado, a walk by Gonzalez, an RBI single by Parra and a tworun single by Trevor Story. Then Charlie Blackmon faded a tworun double into the left-field corner, increasing Colorado’s lead to 8-0.
Relievers Scott Oberg and Chris Rusin finished off the Giants in the eighth and ninth to preserve Colorado’s second shutout of the season.