McCutchen hits three home runs
PIRATES 9, ROCKIES 4 Jorge De La Rosa leaves with a pulled groin after three rough innings.
The wiseguys in Las Vegas made the Rockies 200-1 longshots to win the 2016 World Series for a smart-money reason. They were pretty certain the Rockies’ pitching would be bad.
And it was really bad on a chilly Tuesday night at Coors Field, where Pittsburgh all-star center fielder Andrew McCutchen launched three home runs in the Pirates’ 9-4 victory.
Pittsburgh hit five home runs in all, three of them off slumping ace Jorge De La Rosa. The left-hander departed from the game after just three innings because of an injured left groin.
“I don’t think if affected him before tonight’s game,” Rockies manager Walt Weiss said of De La Rosa. “I don’t know if he did it running to first. He may have done it before that, but he didn’t say anything. After he ran down first base, that’s the first time he mentioned, but I’m not exactly sure when it happened.”
De La Rosa was unavailable for comment.
Asked if De La Rosa could be headed for the disabled list, Weiss said, “We will have to talk to Doogie (team trainer Keith Dugger) to see where we are at.”
The Rockies, carrying a 5.87 team ERA, have dropped four consecutive games at Coors Field and have lost seven straight to the Pirates in Lower Downtown.
McCutchen’s three homers tied his career high and also matched a franchise record. He drove in five runs, and his three-run homer off reliever Christian Bergman in the sixth inning was the telling blow. Then Starling Marte got into the act, adding a solo homer off Gonzalez Germen, giving Pittsburgh an 8-3 lead.
The other time McCutchen hit three homers was Aug. 1, 2009, vs. Washington.
“He was seeing the ball really well tonight,” Bergman said of McCutchen, “and I think the pitch (he hit for his third home run) caught too much of the plate. He did what he did with it.”
De La Rosa’s painful evening began poorly. McCutchen cranked a 439-foot homer in the first, followed immediately by a 419-foot shot by David Freese. De La Rosa then issued a two-out walk to Francisco Cervelli, plunked Jason Rogers and gave up an RBI single to Josh Harrison, giving the Pirates a 3-0 lead. Once again, the Rockies were facing a deficit before they had swung a bat.
McCutchen delivered another solo homer in the second off De La Rosa, putting Pittsburgh ahead 4-0.
In the third, De La Rosa pulled up near first base after hitting a groundout to lead off the inning. He did not return to the mound in the fourth.
Why has De La Rosa struggled so far this season?
“The one difference I see is that the fastball isn’t coming out like it was, or used to,” Weiss said. “The changeup is still a real good pitch … but the fastball is a tick down.”
Before this season, De La Rosa had never given up three home runs in a game at Coors Field, but he has done it twice in three starts this season. San Diego blasted three off him April 9 in a 16-3 Padres laugher.
De La Rosa, whose 79 victories are the most in Rockies history, has looked nothing like the staff ace the club was counting on. Through five starts, he’s 1-3 with a 10.18 ERA. He’s pitched past the fifth inning only once, and he got the hook after just two innings last week at Cincinnati, a game in which the Reds stole five bases in one inning.
Nolan Arenado, as he so often does, carried the Rockies back into contention, if only briefly. His leadoff solo homer off Pittsburgh starter Gerrit Cole in the fourth cut Pittsburgh’s lead to 4-2.
It was Arenado’s eighth homer. In the fifth, Arenado’s two-out single to left field scored Bergman and nearly scored Gerardo Parra from second, but a perfect throw from Marte erased Parra at the plate.