Freeland rescues the Rockies
LATE TUESDAY: ROCKIES 3, ANGELS 2
ANAHEIM, CALIF.» The Angels trotted out their bullpen to pitch the entirety of Tuesday night’s game against Colorado, with Noe Ramirez becoming the first player in Los Angeles history to start a game the day after earning a save. Six other relievers kept the Rockies’ offense stymied.
While Los Angeles’ untraditional Johnny Wholestaff approach was effective, Rockies ace Kyle Freeland was even better, throwing six innings of onerun ball in a fifth consecutive quality start before the Colorado bullpen locked down the 32, bounceback win for the Rockies.
Carlos Gonzalez’s tworun homer to right to bring around Charlie Blackmon gave the Rockies a 20 advantage over the Angels in the first inning, but the Los Angeles trio of Jim Johnson, Taylor Cole and Cam Bedrosian shut down Colorado over the next five innings.
“CarGo’s home run was the difference, because it always helps when Freeland gets any sort of lead early,” Blackmon said. “He’s been so good lately, and he was good again tonight.”
Cole, recalled earlier in the day from TripleA Salt Lake City, was particularly efficient by working ahead to seven of the nine Rockies batters he faced during three scoreless innings.
“Facing all those relievers, it’s a little different in the sense that you don’t get a couple atbats against one guy, and you can’t build off the atbat before,” Blackmon said. “Everything’s a oneoff, and it’s harder to settle in.”
In the bottom of the fifth, David Fletcher’s RBI single scored Eric Young Jr. as the Angels cut their deficit to 21, but Freeland limited the damage with a caughtlooking strikeout of Mike Trout on a fastball at the top of the zone.
Freeland then walked Albert Pujols to open the sixth but responded with three consecutive outs, ending his outing and lowering his season ERA to 2.90 — on pace to challenge Ubaldo Jimenez’s franchise record of 2.88 in 2010, and the best among all National League lefthanded starters with at least 150 innings pitched.
His consistency came despite a slider that wasn’t as sharp as usual.
“The slider was really big here at sea level with so much moisture in the air, and I had trouble backdooring it tonight because I wasn’t able to keep it tight,” Freeland said. “But other than that, the fastball was working well, and me and Chris (Iannetta) were on the same page. The changeup kept them off balance.”