A couple of terrible things happened on Friday. One, Nolan Arenado's club-record 28-game hitting streak ended. That didn't look like it was going to be so bad when he walked and scored the tying run in the ninth inning, but Joey Votto's walk-off home run on a 3-0 pitch from Boone Logan rendered the run useless and gave the Reds a 4-3 victory over the Rockies at Great American Ballpark.
Arenado went 0-for-3 with a strikeout against Reds start Johnny Cueto, who entered the game as a top two pitcher in the National League and showed why, striking out eight batters and surrendering only two runs on five hits and a walk in eight innings. However, Arenado's walk against Jonathan Broxton in the ninth inning set the stage for Justin Morneau, who crushed a ball off the base of the left-center field wall to tie the game after the Reds took the lead in the bottom of the eighth on a sacrifice fly.
Unfortunately for the Rockies, Votto is absolutely nails both against left-handed pitching (all five of his homers in 2014 have come against southpaws) as well as on 3-0 counts (he now has four walk-off dingers, and all of them have come in the ultimate hitter's count).
Logan allowed two runs on two hits -- both of the extra-base variety -- in an inning of work. It was the second consecutive outing in which Logan, who entered the game with 13.9 strikeouts per nine innings, failed to whiff a batter.
He really could have used one of those in the eighth after light-hitting rookie Billy Hamilton led off with a double and advanced to third on a bunt. However, Logan left a pitch up and out over the plate for Brayan Pena to lift into right field, allowing Hamilton to score and the Reds to reclaim the lead.
Cincinnati jumped on Rockies starter Jhoulys Chacin early, putting a couple of runs on the board in the first two innings. The second of which came on a 485-foot home run from Todd Frazier, who was all over an 87 MPH cookie from Chacin on the first pitch of the inning.
Chacin settled in nicely, throwing 88 pitches -- 60 for strikes -- in six innings while allowing only the two runs on four hits and a walk. He struck out only two batters, but induced nine ground-ball outs and generally looked a lot better than he did in his first start.
While their starter was finding his groove, the Rockies fought back and evened the game on a home run from Troy Tulowitzki -- his 10th of the year -- and an RBI single off the bat of Charlie Blackmon. The Rockies managed only six hits, two of which came from Justin Morneau, who also drew one of the Rockies' two walks of the night.
Source: FanGraphs
Colorado will try to get back into the win column on Saturday at 5:10 MT when Jordan Lyles takes the hill against Alfred Simon. Both hurlers have been unexpectedly dominant this season, so we should be in for another good one.
Roll Call Info | |
---|---|
Total comments | 361 |
Total commenters | 28 |
Commenter list | Bryan Kilpatrick, BubbaFan, Drew Creasman, ES46NE10, Jbronc, Jordan Freemyer, PurpleToPurple, RhodeIslandRoxfan, Richard Bergstrom, Rockies7935, RockyMountainWay91, Rox316, Roxman4ever, Rutabaga, SDcat09, Sjamb, The Ghost of Marv Throneberry, Thnikkaman, WalkInRight, afanfromafar, bethelbroncos, butterfly2, dmoneyrox, dyzz, everever, holly96, idj2, vtmn_D |
Story URLs |