Jeff Francis may have forgotten what it was like to pitch at Coors Field in his season plus away, but chances are that he's probably remembering right now. When bats make contact with baseballs at altitude, bad things occur with greater frequency than they do in other places. Francis actually wasn't terrible in a pitch to contact sense, as he never allowed more than a single to the Angels, he and the cursed park the Rockies play in just gave up a lot of those. Also, Francis and catcher Wil Nieves allowed a few too many SB's (Mike Trout's fast, but he wasn't the only one running at will today) allowing the Angels to expand their singles into run scoring opportunities, which Los Angeles subsequently would cash in with more of those BABIP cursed singles.
Meanwhile, for the Rockies offense, all the components for a winning formula were also in place, just put in the wrong order. The team rapped out 13 hits, including seven for extra bases, and two walks, but managed just five runs, all on solo home run blasts. This kind of day would normally see double digit run production, that it didn't, and that the Angels were so successful on balls in play created the Jobian nightmare of a loss, 11-5 for the final score.
The Rockies entered play today five solo home runs behind Cincinnati in the race for most in the National League, and caught up. Tyler Colvin hit two solo shots in a 3 for 4 day, while Marco Scutaro, Carlos Gonzalez and Chris Nelson hit one solo bomb each. The team now has 42 solo HR's on the season, 10 of which have come in just two of the team's 58 games.