Freeland outduels Cease in 3-0 victory

Rockies open three game series at Cubs on Friday afternoon

Kyle Freeland upstaged ace Dylan Cease and the Rockies pocketed one of their most satisfying wins of the season on Wednesday afternoon.

Freeland pitched 6 2/3 scoreless innings and Alan Trejo, Yonathan Daza and C.J. Cron delivered in the clutch as the Rockies blanked the White Sox 3-0 at Guaranteed Rate Field.

“Our offense had some clutch hits today against (Cease) and he, obviously, is an upper-echelon pitcher, for sure,” Freeland told AT&T Sportsnet. “For us to be able to get three runs off him and then have me and ‘Serve’ (catcher Brian Serven) go out and do our thing and keep their powerhouse offense at bay, it was great to see.”

The Rockies entered the game having lost 12 of their last 15 on the road, averaging 2.3 runs per game and hitting .201. But Freeland’s excellent start took some of the pressure off.

Freeland did what Freeland does when he’s on his game. He mixed in all of his pitches, scattered seven hits and struck out five. He did walk three, but the lefty induced six groundball outs, and cut short potential Chicago rallies with double plays in the first and second innings.

Freeland got a big assist from Daza in the third inning when Daza made a terrific catch against the left-field wall on Seby Zavala’s line drive. Daza’s catch robbed Zavala of an extrabase hit and prevented two runs from scoring.

Freeland has given up two or fewer runs in each of his last four starts, going 2-1 with a 1.54 ERA.

“I liked it all today and Kyle was really good from the get-go,” manager Bud Black said. “If you break it all down, I thought the fastball played as well today as any time all year.”

Freeland concurred: “We got ahead with the fastball early, throughout the whole game, using both sides of the plate, with a two-seam and four-seam (fastball). We kept them off-balance and that allowed me to use the rest of my arsenal.”

Freeland departed in the seventh inning, leaving his team in a bit of a precarious situation with runners at first and second and Yoan Moncada coming to the plate representing the tying run. But right-hander Carlos Estevez came in to strike out Moncada and then pitched a scoreless eighth.

Closer Daniel Bard struck out the side in the ninth to notch his 30th save in 33 chances. Bard’s