HOFFMAN, PITCHERS SLIP ON ROCKIES’ ROAD TRIP
METS 6, ROCKIES 1
NEW YORK» In a Sunday matinee performance at Citi Field, the Rockies bombed in the Big Apple, getting two-hit in a 6-1 loss.
Right-hander Noah Syndergaard pitched seven scoreless innings, allowing one hit and striking out seven, as the Mets cruised from beginning to end. The Rockies were hoping that right-hander Jeff Hoffman could at least come close to matching Syndergaard.
Hoffman was not up to the challenge, failing to get through at five innings for the first time this season as his record fell to 1-3 and his ERA rose to 8.06.
“This one’s on me, and I didn’t get off to a great start,” said Hoffman, who gave up a three-run homer to Todd Frazier in the first inning. “If I put up a zero in that first inning, maybe things are different. But I started slow, and maybe it rubbed off on the offense.”
Coming off a 9-1 homestand, the Rockies finished their six-game road trip through Chicago and New York with a disappointing 2-4 record. Starting pitching, clearly Colorado’s weak link as it tries to stay relevant in National League wild-card chase, was erratic. Despite strong performances by Peter Lambert (in his bigleague debut) and Antonio Senzatela, the rotation’s cumulative ERA on the road trip was 6.49.
“We got to improve our starting pitching. It’s too variable,” Rockies manager Bud Black said before Sunday’s game.
The Rockies avoided a shutout
by scoring a run in the ninth inning on a walk by Charlie Blackmon and an RBI double to left by David Dahl off reliever Hector Santiago.
Syndergaard, who had been in a mini-slump and failed to notch a win since May 14, didn’t mess around. Making the 100th start of his career, he was sharp from the beginning, striking out Blackmon and Dahl in the first inning. And even though Trevor Story drew a walk, Syndergaard erased him with a pickoff at first base.
“I just kind of trusted my fourseam fastball,” Syndergaard said. “This is an encouraging outing, because that’s a really good team over there.”
Colorado’s lone hit off the man nicknamed “Thor” was a leadoff, infield single by Nolan Arenado in the second inning.
“He was on,” Dahl said of Syndergaard, who had 12 swinging misses on his four-seam fastball. “His fastball was 98-99 mph, with movement. We were late on that, and then when we tried to cheat to it, he threw the curveball or the changeup.”
The Mets, meanwhile, treated Hoffman like a NYC taxicab driver treats a tourist: roughly and with little respect.
They drove the right-hander off the mound with two outs in the fifth inning. Hoffman gave up six runs on seven hits but flashed an effective curveball. Hoffman did strike out seven, including fanning the side in the second inning, but the Rockies needed more consistency from him.
The Mets waylaid Hoffman in the first inning on a leadoff single by Amed Rosario, a double by Michael Conforto and then Frazier’s home run off Hoffman’s 2-0, 94 mph fastball. Considering the way Syndergaard pitched, those three runs were more than enough.
“Jeff showed, at times, a very good breaking ball,” Black said. “But Jeff got beat (throwing) the fastball a number of times. The first-inning backbreaker was the 2-0 fastball to Frazier.”
New York added two more runs off Hoffman in the fifth, combining a walk by Rosario, a run-scoring double by Frazier and an RBI triple by J.D. Davis.
Colorado begins seven-game homestand at Coors Field on Monday when it hosts Chicago.
“It was a tough road trip and we faced a lot of really good arms, but We have to figure out how to win some of those games,” Dahl said. “Now we have to go home and face the Cubs.”