In a foggy, back-and-forth affair at Wrigley Field, the Rockies ultimately came up short. Both German Márquez and Yu Darvish were cruising through five innings, but David Bote hit a three-run homer in the bottom of the fifth to break up the shutout and it was all downhill from there.
Off the Márquez
German Márquez was cruising through five innings, pitching to the minimum through then. However, the wheels started to fall off in the bottom of the fifth. After recording two straight outs, he gave up back to back singles to Wilson Contreras and Jason Heyward. Then, Colorado native David Bote came up to the plate and hit a three-run homer on the first pitch he saw. In the sixth inning, the wheels really fell off. After a lead off double to Kyle Schwarber, Márquez then hit Kris Bryant and gave up an RBI single to Anthony Rizzo. Then after striking out Báez, he walked old friend Carlos González to load the bases and then hit Contreras to force in a run. Márquez was then relieved by Chris Rusin, who gave up three more runs to David Bote. Germán ended the game with eight runs charged to him, his highest in 2019.
No quit
Despite the struggles of the pitchers, the Rockies played really nice team baseball on multiple occasions. The first was in the sixth inning to erase the 3-0 deficit and tie the game. Then, after the disastrous bottom of the sixth, they rallied again in the top of the seventh to come within a run. Even in the eighth, when Bote hit another RBI single, Trevor Story and David Dahl went back-to-back in the ninth to cut the Cubs lead to one again. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough as Nolan Arenado popped out and Daniel Murphy and Ryan McMahon both struck out to strand Dahl at first base.
Up Next
The Rockies will look to avoid the sweep tomorrow before jetting off to New York. Rookie Peter Lambert (no. 2 PuRP) will make his MLB debut against lefty Jose Quintana. The game begins at 12:20pm MT.