Giants 5, Rockies 2: road game blues

After a promising road win yesterday, the Colorado Rockies failed to maintain offensive momentum, dropping the series finale against the San Francisco Giants 5-2 to end their short road trip with only one win. The Rockies fall to 14-45 on the road with a 52-66 record on the season. Mercifully, the Rockies only have three games left to play in the state of California for the remainder of the season.

A Gray day

Rockies starting pitcher Jon Gray needed to bounce back after his last outing where he pitched just 4 ¹⁄₃ innings. Today, Gray pitched just 4 ¹⁄₃ innings. Through four, Gray was cruising through the Giants’ lineup and keeping them off the board while the Rockies’ offense floundered. All hell broke loose in the fifth inning, when Gray gave up three straight singles to give up his first run. He then walked the Giants pitcher to load the bases. It looked like Gray might have been able to finesse his way out of a rough situation when he struck out LaMonte Wade Jr. with the bases loaded, but he left a pitch up against Tommy LaStella on a 2-2 count and LaStella crushed it. The ball bounced off the top of the right field brickwork and could have potentially been called a home run, but bounced back into the field of play and was ruled a double after review. Gray’s final line ended at 4 ¹⁄₃ innings, 7 hits, three runs, one walk, and five strikeouts.

In his postgame interview, Gray remained positive about his outing. He stated he was really only being hard on himself for walking pitcher Alex Wood during the fifth inning, and praised the Giants offense for getting to him on what he believed were good pitches. He is eager to put this road trip behind him.

Offensive failure to launch. Again.

Despite Jon Gray’s sudden implosion, this was a winnable game stymied by the frustrating Rockies offense. Through six innings the Rockies had just two hits: a Connor Joe single in the fourth, and Taylor Motter’s first major league base hit since 2018 in the sixth. In the seventh inning it seemed like the bats were finally waking up. Ryan McMahon hit a nice single, and with two outs, Yonathan Daza, Elias Díaz, and Charlie Blackmon hit back to back singles to put the game within one run. Unfortunately the rally would end unnecessarily. Connor Joe singled to right field and Elias Díaz tried to reach home all the way from second base. A dart of a throw from LaMonte Wade Jr. had Díaz out at the plate by a good five steps. The Rockies would get just one more hit during the rest of the game, and would go down in order quickly in the ninth for the loss.

Coming up next

The Rockies head home tomorrow to take on the San Diego Padres in a more comfortable environment: Coors Field, where they are 38-21 on the season. Antonio Senzatela will take the mound against a hitherto unannounced Padres pitcher. First pitch is at 6:40 PM MDT.