D'Backs 5, Rockies 1: Rockies offense goes from boom to bust (again)

There's not much depth to this one. The Rockies were completely shut down by Patrick Corbin who pitched a three hit, one run, complete game effort. On the other side of the coin, Jon Garland did not pitch well as he gave up five runs on 11 hits while failing to record a single strikeout. In all, the D'backs piled up 16 hits and the only thing that kept their run total in check was 16 of them being singles.

On one hand, you tip your cap to Corbin as he was outstanding tonight, but at the same time, the Rockies offense has been tipping its cap to far too many opponents as of late. More often than not, the offense booms, but when it doesn't, it busts in a big way.

Take the last 11 games for instance. In six of them, the Rockies offense has been extremely impressive. The opposing starter's have pitching lines that look like this in those six games...

Jaime Garcia: 6.0 IP, 8 hits, 5 runs (all earned)

Carlos Villanueva: 5.0 IP, 12 hits, 7 runs (all earned)

Matt Cain: 6.1 IP, 8 hits, 6 runs (all earned)

Madison Bumgarner: 4.2 IP, 8 hits, 9 runs (seven earned)

Tim Lincecum: 5 IP, 7 hits, 6 runs (all earned)

Barry Zito: 5.2 IP, 11 hits, 5 runs (all earned)

However, in the other five games (including tonight's effort from Patrick Corbin), the opposing starter has handcuffed the Rockies offense to the point of depression. Here are the opposing starter's lines in those five games...

Shelby Miller: 9.0 IP, 1 hit, 0 runs, 13 K's, 0 BB's

Adam Wainwright: 9.0 IP, 2 hits, 0 runs, 7 K's, 1 BB

Travis Wood: 7.0 IP, 2 hits, 0 runs, 2 K's, 3 BB

Jeff Samardzija: 8.0 IP, 5 hits, 2 runs, 7 K', 2 BB's

Patrick Corbin: 9.0 IP, 3 hits, 1 run, 10 K's 1 BB

Granted, four of these pitchers have been excellent this year with ERA's of 1.40 (Miller), 2.51 (Wainwright), 2.24 (Wood), and 1.44 (Corbin), but it's getting very hard to argue that the Rockies offense doesn't have at least something to do with these outings. The Colorado bats are as good as any in the game when it comes to clobbering bad and mediocre pitching, but they have not yet learned how to scratch out runs and pile up pitch counts when they are facing opposing starters who are on their game. When this offense goes cold, it goes colder than a Russian winter.

Source: FanGraphs

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Games Behind: 2.0

Games Left: 117

Record needed to beat Keith Law's prediction: 30-87

Record needed to beat 2012: 41-76

Record needed to beat the Vegas Over / Under Number: 48-69

Record needed to finish above .500: 58-59

Number of Home Runs needed for Cargo, Tulo, and Rosario to combine for 100: 73

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Game 2 of this series begins tomorrow at 8:40 p.m. Mountain Time and will feature a pitching matchup of Ian Kennedy (2-3, 4.88) vs. Jhoulys Chacin (3-3, 4.07).