Rockies can't overcome Gray's bad outing; fall 10-6

Despite Charlie Blackmon's three home runs, the Rockies couldn't recover from a bad outing from Jon Gray as they fell 10-6 in Philadelphia tonight.

Both teams played fast and loose with the baseball in the early innings. Trailing 1-0, the Rockies got their first run in the top of the second when David Dahl reached on a dropped third strike, advanced to third on a single, and scored on a soft ground ball that severely confused a decaying Ryan Howard.

Colorado countered Philadelphia by allowing an unearned run of their own in the bottom of the inning when Freddy Galvis scored on a bad throw by Gerardo Parra. Jon Gray hurt his own cause by spiking a pitch in front of home plate later in the inning that scored another run to give the Phillies a 3-1 lead.

Charlie Blackmon got the Rockies within one in the top of the third with the first of his three solo home runs. In the fifth, Phillies starter Jake Thompson walked the bases full, but the Rockies were only able to get one run on a Nolan Arenado sac fly.

Jon Gray labored through 4 1/3 innings in his second awful start in a row. He was on the verge of escaping with minimal damage in the fifth when the re-animated corpse of Howard hit a towering grand slam into center field that turned a 3-3 tie into a 7-3 Philadelphia lead that they would hold for the rest of the game.

That was pretty much the end of it. Each team added three more runs. The Rockies got theirs by virtue of three more solo home runs, including two from Charlie Blackmon that gave him his first career three-homer game.

There isn't much you can say about this one. The depleted offense (outside of Blackmon) looked anemic, and Jon Gray turned in another concerning outing. He seems to be struggling a bit to cope with the strain of a full major league season. The series continues tomorrow night at 5:05 MDT as Tyler Anderson takes on Jerad Eickhoff.

Source: FanGraphs