Rockies shut out again
S AN D I EGO» Cheerfully blind to the one-sided pressure he parachuted into Thursday night, Christian Villanueva, the 26-year-old Padres third baseman from Guadalajara, Mexico, dispensed the Rockies in backto-back at-bats without a care in the world showing.
Villanueva was playing in just his fourth big-league game, counting up, he hopes, to an extended career.
The Rockies were counting down. With 10 games remaining in their season and two teams hot on their trail trying to steal away a wild-card playoff berth, Colorado looked like a club running out of gas in a 3-0 loss at Petco Park. The best Rockies team in seven years is crumbling.
Colorado lefty Tyler Anderson gave up a 410-foot solo homer to Villanueva in the fifth inning, his second career shot and on consecutive nights to the second deck in left field, and a run-scoring single to Villanueva in the sixth. And the Padres sniped the Rockies for a fourth consecutive loss.
After the Chicago Cubs outlasted the Brewers with Kris Bryant’s two-run homer in the 10th inning, the Rockies (82-71) remained one game ahead of Milwaukee for the second and final National League wild-card spot, and 1½ games in front of the Cardinals.
But the Rockies are sliding into danger. Their offense was shut out on a second consecutive night by another team that can’t see the playoffs with a telescope. The Giants on Wednesday took down Colorado 4-0 behind left-hander Matt Moore (6-14, 5.20 ERA). Thursday it was lefty Clayton Richard (8-14, 4.63), another middling veteran, who set them down.
This six-game road trip down the West Coast, against the worst team in the NL and another only slightly better, was supposed to accelerate Colorado toward the finish. Instead, the Rockies, in the heat of a postseason chase, have not scored in 19 consecutive innings.
Nolan Arenado and Mark
NL wild-card chase
Th eto pw ild-card team will host th ese con dw il dca rd in a one-game playo ffW ednesday, Oct .4:
Team Rec. GB Arizona 88-65 +6 D-backs were off Thursday. Colorado 82-71 — 3-0 loss to S.D., 19 scoreless inn. Milwaukee 81-72 1 Bryant help sCu bs beat Brewers. St. Louis 80-72 1½ Completes sweep o fR eds, 8-5.
Reynolds each singled twice, the only Rockies with multiple hits off Richard, who on Wednesday signed a two-year, $6 million contract extension with San Diego. Neither of them reached second base. Only DJ LeMahieu got past first base, in the first inning, after he singled and Arenado singled behind him.
“You have to be relaxed and loose, but yet be focused and intense,” Colorado manager Bud Black said from his dugout before the game. “It’s a skill. And a lot of times, experience helps create that skill.”
Villanueva, with very little experience, seemed to exhibit very little anxiety. Anderson worked through 5M innings with just six hits off him. But Villanueva’s homer in the fifth was the first run allowed by Anderson in 14 innings since he returned from knee surgery.
Anderson (5-6, 5.24) allowed the other run on a sacrifice fly by Hunter Renfroe in the sixth that scored Wil Myers, who had walked. Anderson struck out six in total.
But pitching was not the problem. The Rockies hit into three inning-ending double plays, in the first, fourth and seventh. Richard struck out eight and walked just one.
Even LeMahieu’s workmanlike 12-pitch at-bat in the eighth, with Pat Valaika on second base and Charlie Blackmon at first, fell short. Reliever Kirby Yates forced LeMahieu to foul off six pitches before striking him out.
The Rockies’ magic number — the combination of wins and Brewers losses needed to reach the postseason for the first time since 2009 — fell to nine. But there is nothing especially magical about an 0-for-3 start to this late-season road trip.