The Colorado Rockies were unable to inject any life into their current stretch of bad baseball on Tuesday night. The Arizona Diamondbacks jumped out to a big lead early and never looked back, defeating the Rockies at Coors Field by a final score of 9-3.
At least the pitchers hit well
Let’s look for the bright side, and let’s start with those pitchers swinging the bat, eh? Jeff Hoffman and Jesus Tinoco combined to bat 1.000 in this game. How about that? Tinoco even pitched in a run scored. He does it all!
Tinoco also pitched well in mop-up duty, working around three walks in three scoreless innings of work. So at least there’s that? Unfortunately there is no such positive report for what Hoffman did as a pitcher in this game. He did get that hit, though.
Hoffman got rocked
We will likely get a long look at Hoffman in the rotation between now and the end of the season. It’s starting to feel like there’s some urgency for Hoffman to prove he’s got something. There should be some urgency, because so far it’s not there for the guy who’s supposed to help us win the Tulo trade, all these years later.
He got hit awfully hard in just two innings of this one, giving up seven earned runs on six hits. Of those hits, four were home runs. Woof. He’s got to figure out how to avoid those big fat mistakes, something that will always be a challenge for him at Coors Field with that loopy curveball.
But that is far from the only issue, something that is obvious from Hoffman’s 7.81 ERA this season. He’s not the only one who had a rough night, but he was definitely the main culprit.
Did I mention that he wasn’t the only one who had a rough night?
— Coray Runge (@CorayRunge) August 14, 2019
Some young guys came through
The state of the Rockies is obviously not good right now. It’s not even the middle of August and we already are left to focus on the players of the future. But hey, some of those guys did well in this game!
Start with Dom Nuñez, who hit a home run for his first big league hit in his Major League debut.
When your first career hit is a homer... you've earned the nickname #BombNuñez
— Colorado Rockies (@Rockies) August 14, 2019
Congrats Dom! pic.twitter.com/Gn5Pkfs7Tx
Raimel Tapia may not feel like a prospect the way that some of the other kids do, but he’s still a young guy who will be looking to prove himself the rest of the way. He had three hits and a walk in this game.
Looking ahead
Whether they want to or not, the Rockies will play the Diamondbacks again on Wednesday. Kyle Freeland will start against Robbie Ray.