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Rockies 4, Diamondbacks 2: Tyler Chatwood Is Pretty Good When On His Game

By Andrew Martin
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Tonight was a generally positive game. The Rockies took an early lead off of Trevor Cahill and held it alllllllll the way through the 9th inning. Given the work we've seen from the bullpen these past 2 weeks, this is somewhat of a surprise. Not to throw the arguably best part of the 2012 Rockies under the bus, but they've looked seriously out of gas in September (not surprising), and I'm downright impressed that they got the job done as well as they did tonight.

Tyler Chatwood was on tonight. Very on. He was killing worms and keeping Josh Rutledge on his toes from the first through nearly the end of the 6th. 13 groundouts to 1 flyout is exactly what the Rockies have always wanted to see out of their pitchers. He wasn't absolutely pounding the strike zone, but he was keeping hitters off balance with his fastball, which he pumped up to 96 tonight, and he even had his curveball dropping into the zone early in the count for strikes. The one black mark on his night was the Jason Kubel no-doubter into the RF 2nd deck, which drove across one of the 2 free passes Chatwood issued on the night. Chatwood threw 85 pitches, 52 for strikes (52K, 33B).

After Chatwood, Josh Outman got Kubel to strike out to end the 6th and then forced a Ryan Wheeler groundout before giving way to Guillermo Moscoso. Moscoso recorded all of his outs on balls in play, entirely in the air or on a line, but he was also locating very well, at least from my vantage point. He was burning in strikes at the knees on both sides of the plate. Moscoso pitched 1.2 innings, 10 strikes, 7 balls.

Rafael Betancourt pitched the 9th, and while it was entirely cringe-inducing (he gave up some serious contact), including 2 hits and a few scary flyouts, but he did strike out Paul Goldschmidt and hung on through those 2 baserunners to record his 30th save of the 2012 season.

Offensively, the Rockies got 1 run in the first, 2 in the 4th, and Andrew Brown hit a 8th-inning solo shot to pad the Rockies lead.

4 wins more to avoid 100 losses. You know, if you're worried about that sort of thing.


Source: FanGraphs

Pitcher IP H HR ER BB SO pLI WPA
B Shaw 1.0 0 0 0 0 1 0.65 .052
T Cahill 6.0 9 0 2 1 6 1.31 -.013
B Ziegler 1.0 1 1 1 0 1 0.41 -.056
Total 8.0 10 1 3 1 8 1.15 -.016

Pitcher IP H HR ER BB SO pLI WPA
G Moscoso 1.2 0 0 0 0 0 1.40 .188
J Outman 0.2 0 0 0 0 1 2.15 .116
T Chatwood 5.2 3 1 2 2 3 1.01 .091
R Betancourt 1.0 2 0 0 0 1 1.51 .088
Total 9.0 5 1 2 2 5 1.20 .484

Batter AB R H HR RBI BB SO pLI WPA
A Eaton 4 0 0 0 0 0 1 1.10 -.118
J Elmore 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 1.05 -.112
J Upton 3 0 0 0 0 1 0 0.92 -.031
M Montero 4 0 1 0 0 0 0 1.33 -.077
P Goldschmidt 3 1 1 0 0 1 1 1.11 -.004
J Kubel 4 1 2 1 2 0 2 1.34 .134
R Wheeler 4 0 1 0 0 0 0 1.17 -.001
T Graham 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
J McDonald 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 1.82 -.200
B Ziegler 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
B Shaw 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
M Jacobs 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.84 -.023
T Cahill 2 0 0 0 0 0 1 0.98 -.052
Total 33 2 5 1 2 2 5 1.20 -.484
Batter AB R H HR RBI BB SO pLI WPA
J Rutledge 4 0 1 0 0 0 1 1.15 -.096
C Blackmon 3 1 2 0 0 0 0 0.87 .066
J Pacheco 4 0 1 0 0 0 0 1.21 .006
T Colvin 4 1 2 0 1 0 2 1.20 .067
C Nelson 3 1 0 0 0 1 1 1.42 -.090
M McBride 4 0 1 0 0 0 1 1.30 .005
A Brown 4 1 2 1 2 0 1 1.06 .126
D Fowler 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
D LeMahieu 4 0 1 0 1 0 1 0.90 .000
G Moscoso 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
T Chatwood 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 1.30 -.050
J Outman 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1.17 -.019
R Betancourt 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Total 32 4 10 1 4 1 8 1.15 .016

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