LoDo letdown vs. Padres
PADRES 4, ROCKIES 3 Sluggish Rockies’ offense blows chance to come back in eighth inning After a magical road trip to “Hotlanta,” there was no mojo in LoDo for the Rockies on Tuesday night.
A sleepy offense and key San Diego home runs led to a 4-3 Rockies defeat, a big letdown after they swept four games from the Braves in Atlanta for the first time in franchise history. Colorado fell one game behind Arizona in the National League West, pending the Diamondbacks’ late game against the Angels.
At 50-78, the Padres are chained to the National League West basement, but they improved to 4-3 at Coors Field this season.
The Rockies blew a big chance in the eighth inning against reliever Craig Stammen. Back-to-back singles by pinch-hitter Gerardo Parra and Charlie Blackmon, a sacrifice bunt by DJ LeMahieu and an intentional walk to Nolan Arenado loaded the bases. But Stammen struck out Trevor Story and coaxed Carlos Gonzalez to ground out.
On the decision to have LeMahieu bunt in the eighth, manager Bud Black said: “That was me. We wanted to get a runner to third base with less than two outs with a guy (Story) who is an all-star hitter. It didn’t work out for ‘Trev.’ ”
LeMahieu was OK with the decision.
“That’s kind of the player I am. I do that well. It’s not always the most popular call, but we gave Trevor and CarGo a chance. I love that call.”
The Rockies went away quietly in the ninth as Kirby Yates struck out Ian Desmond and David Dahl and got
Chris Iannetta to fly out to deep left to lock down the victory. Colorado finished with only seven hits in its home ballpark.
Rockies starter Tyler Anderson’s August struggles continued. Though he toughed it out for 6L innings and struck out eight and walked none, the Padres scored four runs on 10 hits off the left-hander, including two home runs.
“Other than the (home runs), I feel OK. I just feel bad that it seems like every time I take the ball, we are not winning those games,” Anderson said. “I put a lot of pressure on myself about that. I feel bad about that. We are in big spot, and all we want to do is win, and it feels like I’m not doing a good service right now.”
San Diego lefty Robbie Erlin cracked a bit but never crumbled, pitching five innings of five-hit baseball, allowing three runs.
Colorado’s season-long first-inning woes continued. Freddie Galvis opened the game with a double and trotted home on Eric Hosmer’s two-run blast to rightcenter off Anderson’s first-pitch cutter. The Rockies’ first-inning ERA climbed to 7.70 and is on pace for the second-highest mark since 1974, according to Stats Inc.
Austin Hedges tagged Anderson for a leadoff home run in the sixth, giving San Diego a 4-3 lead.
Longballs are now haunting Anderson with increasing frequency. He has given up 26 this season, tied with Milwaukee’s Chase Anderson for the most in the Nation- al League, and nine of those home runs have come in his four starts in August.
“Home runs are really the result of mistake pitches by the pitcher,” Black said. “We can go back and look at those nine (home runs) and see that most of them were probably in the middle of the plate or pitches that a hitter could probably put a pretty good swing on.”
The Rockies cut into San Diego’s 3-0 lead with a two-run third inning. Charlie Blackmon belted a triple into the right-field corner and scored on DJ LeMahieu’s hard infield single that handcuffed Galvis at short. Arenado drove in LeMahieu with a drive that center fielder Manuel Margot misplayed into an RBI double.
Iannetta tied the game at 3-3 in the fifth inning with his ninth home run, a 436-foot, 104 mph liner to left off Erlin.