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Rockies 2, Nationals 1: Bullpen excellent in win

Adam Ottavino and Wade Davis were particularly fun to watch

The Rockies beat the Nationals 2-1 in Washington D.C. Friday night on the strength of the bullpen, which was nails. Kyle Freeland had an alright start, but he was dealing with a lot of traffic in the fifth and couldn’t get out of the inning. The only run he gave up was a Bryce Harper sacrifice fly with the bases loaded and one out, so it obviously could have been much worse. Carlos González hit a solo home run and drove in another run with a sacrifice fly, and that constituted the Rockies’ offense for the night.

Did I mention the bullpen?

Freeland departed having pitched 423 innings of pretty good baseball. The night’s bullpeners—Scott Oberg, Bryan Shaw, Mike Dunn, Adam Ottavino, and Wade Davis—allowed just one baserunner in the remaining 413 innings of the game. Ottavino continued his dominance, as he struck out both batters he faced. He’s now struck out 18 of the 27 batters so far in 2018. That’s a pretty good development.

What more do you want?

The game didn’t have a lot of excitement—two of the three runs scored were sacrifice flies and the other was a solo home run, which isn’t much more interesting—but it was nice to see the bullpen shine and the Rockies win a close game on the road. However much we may want to say “but the offense needs to pick it up,” and however much that’s true, it was a good win.

Looking ahead

Tomorrow’s matchup looks like it should be a great one, as Jon Gray takes on Cy Young winner Max Scherzer. That ACE OFF gets going at 11:05 MT.