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 42⁄3 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 41⁄3 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.