Suspect pitching must improve for realistic shot at postseason

The Rockies are treading water.

They went 15-13 in June, including a 9-8 record against National League West opponents. If they want to make the playoffs for an unprecedented third consecutive year, they’ll have to do better.

Offense is not the issue. Colorado scored 167 runs in June, its most since scoring 175 runs in June 1999.

But getting quality pitching remains a sticking point as the Rockies open a two-game series against Houston on Tuesday night at Coors Field.

“I’ve been saying that for three years since I’ve been here,” manager Bud Black said Sunday after a sixth-inning meltdown cost the Rockies dearly in a 10-5 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The hit-and-miss rotation remains in flux. Starters must go deeper into games, because a suspect bullpen is beginning to feel the strain. Whether general manager Jeff Bridich can swing a trade to improve the pitching remains a huge question mark.

In June, Colorado’s overall 5.26 ERA ranked 12th in the NL. The 4.88 starters’ ERA ranked 10th, and the bullpen’s 5.84 ERA ranked 13th.

“The second half, we’re hoping for better results,” Black said. “We have to get some things in order on the pitching side. On any given night, we have 13 pitchers and we need a number of guys — double-digit guys — pitching well. We can’t have a guy pitch good, a guy pitch bad. We need consistent pitching from our rotation and our bullpen.”

Left-hander Kyle Freeland, a revelation last season with a 17-7 record and 2.85 ERA, is toiling at Triple-A Albuquerque, trying to regain his lost mojo. After five starts, he’s 0-3 with an 11.12 ERA and a 2.21 WHIP. Black said recently that Freeland’s return to the big-league rotation was “critical,” but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen anytime soon.

Fortunately for Colorado, right-hander Jon Gray is on a roll. He went 5-1 with a 2.65 ERA in June, and he outpitched Los Angeles’ Clayton Kershaw on Saturday.

German Marquez, the perceived “ace” of the staff, has been solid, but certainly not dominant (8-3, 4.29 ERA). Like almost all of Colorado’s pitchers, not counting Gray, Marquez has struggled at Coors Field, where baseballs are whistling around the ballpark as they did in the prehumidor days. Marquez is 4-1 with a 5.70 ERA at Coors.

It should be noted that Colorado pitchers own a 3.90 ERA on the road, which is the fourthlowest mark in baseball. At home, however, those same pitchers have a 6.43 ERA, highest in the majors.

That’s a quandary the Rockies will have to solve with the likes of journeyman Chi Gonzalez in the rotation, at least for now. After two starts, Gonzalez has a 6.00 ERA with a 1.89 WHIP and has yet to get out of the fifth inning.

“I’m pretty content on where I’m throwing the ball, locationwise, although every now and then I leave a ball up,” Gonzalez said after pitching four-plus innings in Sunday’s loss to Los Angeles. “I’m just trying to stay away from the loud outs, the loud damage and the walks.”

Gonzalez, who threw 84 pitches in his short stint on Sunday, knows that his pitch count is too high.

“The (fewer) pitches I throw in each inning, the longer I can stay in the game, and the crisper my pitches will be,” he said. “That’s huge, making (fewer) pitches per inning.”

For an overall perspective, consider this: The Rockies own a 44-40 record. At the same point last year, they were 41-43. A year ago, the Rockies went 50-29 after that point, forcing the Dodgers into a Game 163 playoff to decide the NL West. That second-half hot streak was based on excellent pitching.

This year, things are looking a lot different.

“Offensively, we are good,” all-star third baseman Nolan Arenado said. “We feel like we are a good offense and do a lot of great things.”

The critical question is, if the pitching doesn’t significantly improve, will the offense be good enough to get the Rockies into the playoffs and win a postseason series for the first time since 2007?