The Colorado Rockies lost a tough one to the San Diego Padres by a final score of 4-3 on Saturday night. The offense wasn’t able to consistently score runs, and then it was the Rockies’ closer who cost them the game with some command issues.
Wade Davis walks his way into a loss
This has pretty much been the Davis experience since he arrived in Colorado, no matter how many saves he has logged. He just sprays his fastball all over the place and creates trouble for himself.
His stuff is so good he can work out of a lot of that trouble. But tonight was a good example of how that can go wrong. After Davis walked the bases loaded, he gave up the winning run on a soft chopper in the second base hole where Garrett Hampson didn’t have an obvious play.
Baseball games are too complicated for the loss to be one guy’s fault. But the Rockies entered the ninth inning tied and gave a clean inning to their very-well-paid closer. Davis lost them the game with sloppy command. It’s unacceptable.
Jon Gray was mostly good
If quality starts are your thing, Gray delivered one. He went six innings and allowed three earned runs. He struck out eight hitters and issued just one walk. Gray was mostly great, but he made mistakes to Hunter Renfroe and Wil Myers that resulted in two massive home runs. So even in a good start, he continued the trend of Rockies starters giving up too many home runs.
Andy Green tried to help the Rockies out
Joey Lucchesi had the Rockies utterly baffled. The double he allowed to Trevor Story in the sixth inning was a blip on a start where he was otherwise cruising along. Green inexplicably pulled him with just 71 pitches. The Rockies immediately scored a run. Unfortunately they couldn’t do more damage after that, but it was still a weird decision.
Charlie Blackmon tried to have a hero moment
Chuck Nazty hit a home run to tie the game 3-3 in the eighth inning. It felt like the game was there for the Rockies, with the heart of the order still coming that inning. Unfortunately the offense stopped there and the Rockies lost a close game that was there for the taking.
Looking ahead
The Rockies will try to win this series Sunday afternoon with Antonio Senzatela on the mound against Nick Margevicius.