Four homers keep Rockies on right road
cincinnati» It’s easy to drown in baseball statistics, but some numbers the Rockies are putting up are too important to be ignored:
10-2-2: Their series record after beating Cincinnati 6-4 on Sunday afternoon to take a three-game weekend series at Great American Ball Park.
15-7: Their road record — best in the National League — as they head to Philadelphia for a four-game series that begins Monday. The Rockies have posted only one winning road record for a season — 41-40 in 2009, the last time they made it to the playoffs.
19-for-19: Greg Holland’s perfect record as a closer this year. By the way, his ERA is 0.96.
Home runs were flying Sunday at Great American Ball Park, or, as some have called it, the Great American Bandbox. Or Great American Small Park. There were six homers in all, including one from Rockies rookie starter Kyle Freeland, the first of his career.
But Holland was the last pitcher standing at the end. He issued a leadoff walk to Devin Mesoraco, but struck out pinch-hitter Scooter Gennett, got Billy Hamilton to pop out to center and struck out Jose Peraza with a 95.4 mph fastball to end the game.
“This guy has done it before,” Rockies manager Bud Black said of Holland. “He has the experience of doing it in the ninth inning, which is different than the sixth or seventh, as we know. When the heat is turned up just a little bit, Greg has a way of working his way through an inning to get the save, regardless of what is going on.”
Said Holland: “I didn’t tell myself it was OK when I walked (Mesoraco). I was pretty upset. But I just think that over time, with more experience, you know what you are doing out there. You know your cues and you know what to tell yourself.”
Bullpen assists must be handed out to Rockies relievers Chris Rusin and Adam Ottavino, who combined to blank the Reds for 2L innings on a day when the ball was landing on the banks of the Ohio River.
All four of the Rockies’ homers were solo shots, including Freeland’s drive to rightcenter in the fifth inning. Cincinnati hit two bombs, driving Freeland from the game in the sixth inning.
“There are outings when you just don’t quite have that feeling or that command and you have to grind through,” said Freeland, who improved to 5-2 and sports a solid 3.31 ERA over the first nine starts of his career.
Carlos Gonzalez, showing another sign that he’s emerging from his spring-long hibernation at the plate, led off the fourth with a homer that just cleared the fence down the right-field line off veteran pitcher Bronson Arroyo. It was just Gonzalez’s third homer of the season and his first in 76 at-bats. But it also was his milestone 200th homer in a Rockies uniform.
“We have been talking about CarGo getting closer,” Black said. “We saw that here in Cincinnati. I mean, he hit some bullets, some rockets. It’s gradually getting there. At some point, you’re going to see the three-hit game and the four- or five-RBI game. It’s coming.”
Freeland’s homer was the first by a Colorado pitcher this season. Two batters later, DJ LeMahieu, 4-for-5 on the day with two RBIs, launched a homer to deep left-center.
Pat Valaika homered into the left-field seats in the sixth inning to put Colorado ahead 6-1. But not comfortably ahead — not in this ballpark, and not on this day.
Freeland’s performance on the mound was uneven: 5M innings, four runs (three earned) on five hits allowed. When the lefthander was on his game, as he was in innings three through five, he was throwing pitches as heavy as bowling balls, inducing groundball outs. But when he left the ball up, the Reds blasted away, especially in a three-run sixth inning.
Peraza led off with a triple to left-center that hit the top of the wall, followed by Joey Votto’s two-run homer to left. Scott Schebler’s two-out solo shot to right cut Colorado’s once-comfy lead to 6-4.
“Kyle’s got such good action in the strike zone, so when he’s pitching from the knees on down, he creates a lot of groundballs,” Black said. “When the ball gets elevated, it can get a little flat, and it can be put into the air.”