Rockies offense, bullpen fail to support solid outing by Friedrich

In a game that went an opposite direction from much of the 2012 Rockies season, the end result turned out to be just as miserable. For once, it was the Rockies starting pitcher that didn't see his performance rewarded with a win rather than the offense or bullpen that have been let down despite performing well for much of 2012. Christian Friedrich pitched five effective innings, only allowing a solo home run to Yasmani Grandal for the Padres lone score against him, but saw the slim 2-1 lead he left the game with evaporate into an 8-4 loss. Grandal ended up hitting a second homer off of Jeremie Guthrie, this time a two run shot to give San Diego its first lead, and the Padres light hitting shortstop Alexei Amarista also homered twice of the Rox pen to push the game into a blowout.

Meanwhile, Edinson Volquez walked six Rockies and was otherwise shaky, but the Padres starter kept the Rockies mostly off the board save a Wilin Rosario home run and an Eric Young Jr. score off a Grandal error in the fifth. Volquez also had a bit more support from his bullpen than Friedrich did, albeit the Rockies did score a pair of runs in the eighth to close the gap a bit.

No Rockies player had more than one hit, albeit Jordan Pacheco is taking a big step in filling the lone significant gap in his offensive development by collecting a pair of walks along with an RBI single in the eighth. Pacheco has five walks in the seven games over the last week, in his 66 prior MLB games he had six walks total. With Pacheco and Friedrich showing significant development, this loss doesn't feel nearly as bad as many this season. Woot for Pyrrhic victories...