Colorado Rockies take game one against the Giants, win 2-0

On the day the Giants raised their 2014 World Series Championship banner, the Rockies pulled out a scrappy win in San Francisco. Timely pitches and timely hitting were key as the Rockies took game one of the three game set.

The Giants wasted no time putting the pressure on, as they started off the game by loading the bases against Eddie Butler, but fortunately came up scoreless after Butler was able to induce a pop up from Buster Posey and ground out from Gregor Blanco to kill the rally.  Surprisingly, Butler threw just 12 pitches that inning to get himself in and out of trouble. Butler quickly found himself in more hot water after loading the bases in the second, but again managed to battle his way through without allowing a single run. The next two innings weren’t much smoother, as the Giants were able to get two runners aboard both times, but once again to no avail.

It was another shaky start from Butler, but when he got in a jam he was always able to get himself out of it.  Butler threw five and a third shutout innings and he has the defense behind him to thank for that. Butler induced ten ground ball outs while giving up five hits and six walks.

Chris Heston on the other hand, was dealing early on. It was only Heston’s third start of his career, but his pitches had plenty of life as he kept the Rockies off balance through the majority of the seven innings he pitched.

The Rockies were finally able to manufacture a run against Heston in the fourth. Charlie Blackmon led off the inning with his second base hit of the day followed by a ground out from Carlos Gonzalez, moving Blackmon into scoring position. Troy Tulowitzki then hit an absolute rocket down the left field line, which plated Blackmon to give the Rockies a 1-0 advantage.

Brooks Brown came on in relief in the sixth to relieve Butler and got the final two outs of the inning.

The Rockies offense was again held in check until the seventh inning when the Rockies had runners on the corners. After a wild pitch from Heston, Nick Hundley took off for home plate and had a somewhat awkward collision with Heston who was covering the plate. The tag clearly beat Hundley, but the ball was not secured and the runner was called safe after a review of the play.

Christian Friedrich came in and threw a dominate inning of relief featuring a strikeout of Buster Posey and Brandon Belt, both on sliders.

The Rockies handed the ball off to veteran Rafael Betancourt in the ninth and he shut down the Giants hitters in order to collect his first save since August of 2013.

The Rockies improve to 5-2 and will face the Giants again tomorrow night at 8:15 MST.

Source: FanGraphs

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