Zack Greinke, sloppy play sink Rockies in 6-2 loss to Arizona

One night after ending a season long eight game losing streak, the Rockies appeared to be falling back into the habits that caused them in the first place on Saturday. The Diamondbacks rebounded from a minor losing streak of their own, beating the Rockies 6-2.

A seventh inning collapse and a Zack Greinke masterpiece were the most notable events in the defeat. Greinke finished with eight strikeouts in seven innings of work, only allowing two runs on three hits. Prior to the seventh inning, Greinke was the entire story from the game. He kept the Rockies completely off balance for six plus innings only surrendering one hit (an infield single by Mike Tauchman) before the frame.

The Diamondbacks offense was bolstered by a run in the first and two in the fourth to give Greinke a 3-0 lead to work with for most of his outing. Chatwood didn’t surrender many hits through the first six frames, but those he did were hit for extra bases.

In the seventh, Nolan Arenado singled and was driven home on a two run home run by Trevor Story. The homer pushed the Rockies to within one run at 3-2. That tight lead would only last another half inning.

In the bottom half, Trevor Story overthrew Mark Reynolds, Jeff Mathis (!) tripled, and Mike Tauchman straight up dropped an easy fly ball in left to give the Diamondbacks a rally that could’ve been avoided without sloppy play. Arizona scored three in the inning, two unearned and the game was put away.

The Rockies created some traffic in the ninth but ultimately were put away by Fernando Rodney to finish the game.

Tyler Chatwood finished the night after 6 ¹⁄₃ innings, he had six strikeouts and three walks. Two of his six runs were unearned. Scott Oberg turned in a nice pitching performance out of the bullpen, going 1 ²⁄₃ innings surrendering only one hit and no runs. Oberg came into the game in the seventh with the bases loaded and one out, he stopped the bleeding and prevented any further runs from coming across. Oberg has now had six scoreless appearances in his last seven. The only run he’s given up since June 15 was a run charged to him in San Francisco even though McGee surrendered the hit that actually scored the run. Scott’s dropped his ERA to 4.72 during the stretch and has become a reliable right hander out of Bud Black’s bullpen.

The Rockies look to take the rubber game and finish this road trip on a high note tomorrow afternoon in Phoenix. German Marquez (5-4, 4.38 ERA) will take on Taijuan Walker (6-3, 3.50 ERA) in the game that is scheduled to start at 2:10 MDT.