Late rally comes up short for Colorado
PHILLIES 5, ROCKIES 4
PHILADELPHIA» Unlike in recent losses, there was no bullpen disaster Tuesday night as the Rockies opened an important six-game road trip against the Phillies, furiously attempting to fend off an ugly early June swoon.
Instead, Colorado’s fifth straight defeat in a 5-4 affair was dictated by one misplaced twoout, first-inning pitch by Jon Gray as well as an effective showing by the Philadelphia pitching staff, which was tagged for 11 hits but survived a ninthinning Rockies’ comeback.
Gray’s erratic ways to open the game via two walks set the table for shortstop Scott Kingery’s 401-foot homer to left on a 1-2 count. That gave the Phillies an early 3-0 lead, which was plenty to work with for right-hander Aaron Nola, who continued his dominance at Citizens Bank Park this season by cruising to his sixth victory here.
“I had no rhythm early on, no tempo. I just really feel like I was trying to lock in on my mechanics early, and I was thinking about my body and not about making a pitch,” Gray said. “That’s what cost me. The walks I’m probably more mad about than the pitch that got hit for a homer. I’ve got to iron that out, because if I can, we win this game tonight, for sure.”
Following the rocky first, Gray allowed just one more run when Kingery hit a sacrifice fly in the third, extending the Phillies’ advantage to 4-0. And while Gray recorded his 11th double-digit strikeout game, with 10, he also walked four for the third time in his career.
Meanwhile, Nola looked strong through 6M innings, yielding one run on four hits while fanning 10. He was spelled by Edubray Ramos for the final out of the seventh, and from there Tommy Hunter tossed a scoreless eighth.
“The fastball and breaking-ball combo was pretty devastating tonight, and he was locating the curveball,” Rockies manager Bud Black said of Nola. “He’s a guy you really can’t guess with, because he can throw that breaking ball at any time.”
Even as Gray battled back from the homer, and the combination of Chris Rusin and Bryan Shaw kept Philadelphia at bay with just one more run to push the score to 5-1 in the eighth, Colorado’s offense was nowhere to be found until the ninth.
In their last gasp, the Rockies managed to load the bases with no outs before catcher Murphy, recalled from Triple-A Albuquerque prior to the game, recorded his third hit, and second RBI, to make it 5-2 and chase Luis Garcia from the game.
Phillies manager Gabe Kapler then brought on Seranthony Dominguez, who gave up an RBI single to Chris Iannetta and a sacrifice fly to DJ LeMahieu before inducing a Charlie Blackmon lineout and a Nolan Arenado strikeout to end it.
It was a collective offensive approach that Colorado lacked in the eight prior frames.
“In the ninth, I saw some good at-bats, some short strokes — taking the ball the other way, taking the ball where it was pitched,” Black said. “They were compact, they had an idea about what their plan was against both relievers. Charlie smoked a ball, DJ just missed it, and we had (six) hits prior to that — so it was real close.”