Rockies 2, Pirates 0. Kyle Freeland dominates for seven innings.
Coming off a 2-5 road trip that made the club’s scorching July quickly feel like a distant memory, the Rockies needed someone to set the tone during Monday night’s opener of a seven-game homestand.
Fortunately for Colorado, it was the turn in the rotation for its unquestioned 2018 ace — both by statistical analysis and the old-fashioned eye test — to take the hill. And when he did, Kyle Freeland did as he has so often done this season: He pitched like a guy hungry for October lights in LoDo.
The second-year southpaw turned in seven innings of two-hit, shutout baseball, and a pair of Colorado runs in the fifth — sandwiched around a 32-minute rain delay — were enough to overcome the Pirates 2-0 at Coors Field.
Beyond Corey Dickerson’s leadoff single in the first inning and Pittsburgh pitcher Joe Musgrove’s double in the third, Freeland was exceptional, and he used five strikeouts to work around his three walks as well as a hit batsman.
In the early parts of the game, Musgrove was outpitching Freeland in the right-hander’s Coors Field debut. Musgrove retired the first dozen Colorado hitters he faced before Nolan Arenado broke up the perfecto to begin the fifth inning.
Arenado’s single to right was followed by a Story single, on which Arenado hustled to third. Gerardo Parra then grounded to Pittsburgh second baseman Josh Harrison, who booted the ball as Arenado scored to give Colorado a 1-0 advantage.
The delay followed, and Colorado added another run via a Chris Iannetta sacrifice fly a few batters later to extend the score to 2-0 in an inning in which Colorado squandered an opportunity to bust the game open. The Rockies gave away one out on a failed sacrifice bunt that Freeland popped up, and handed the Pirates another when Parra was easily thrown out at home by Gregory Polanco to end the threat.
After Freeland exited, Seunghwan Oh pitched a flawless eighth inning as he turned in his sixth consecutive scoreless appearance since joining the Rockies July 26. And Wade Davis, who had blown two straight saves coming into the night, locked down the ninth, earning his 32nd save.