Phillies 8, Rockies 2: Sloppy baseball hurts

What happens when you give up four unearned runs and have multiple errors? You lose a game, that’s what. The Colorado Rockies fall in game one against the Philadelphia Phillies 8-2.

Unearned Runs Hurt

Kyle Freeland made a few mistakes on the mound. There were moments with traffic that made me nervous, but in the grand scheme of things his pitching stats for the nights weren’t horrible.

Freeland pitched five innings, giving up four runs on six hits. Here’s the kicker though, only one of those runs was earned, a home run from Bryce Harper in the fifth inning. He also fanned seven batters in the span of those five innings.

Those strikeouts though, I’ll take ‘em.

Erroneous Fielding

The Rockies looked sloppy on the defensive side of the diamond tonight. Ryan McMahon had two fielding errors and José Iglesias had a missed catch. It was just plain old, sloppy baseball. Not to mention the catch completely missed in the outfield. Did they lose it in the lights? Did they never see it off that bat? It’s really hard to tell. Charlie, wyd?

Pitching Woes of Yesteryear

Just when I thought we could rely on the bullpen, things get super inconsistent again. The arm barn has been a constant pain point for the Rockies, but things were finally starting to look up. But now, I’m not entirely sure. The pitching woes from prior seasons back to haunt us?

Ashton Goudeau pitched 1 ¹⁄₃ innings and gave up four runs, one was unearned but ultimately the traffic can only be blamed on the pitching. If there weren’t runners on the bases, errors wouldn’t haunt the team nearly as much.

The bright spots

I’ll go into more detail about Connor Joe later, but his home run was a certain bright spot. Additionally, Randal Grichuk hit beautiful home run in the second inning that brought a smile to my face.

The bright spots from the arm barn tonight were Lucas Gilbreath, who only walked one, and Ty Blach who pitched a beautiful, clean eighth inning.

He’s my Connor Joe-mie

Connor Joe, he’s my homie. Really, he’s showing some impressive discipline at the plate and it’s paying off. Joe is currently leading all of MLB with his 12-game hitting streak. Plus, he’s just a joy to watch.

Not only is he fun to watch, but he’s an easy guy to cheer on. After battling and overcoming testicular cancer, he has the absolute best attitude and wants to work hard to maintain his position as an every-day player. It is truly a delight to watch him hit lead off home runs, especially when it’s on the first pitch he sees. So, tonight, after a disappointing and sloppy loss, I’ll leave you with CoJo’s beautiful home run.

Up Next

The Rockies will continue this series with game two against the Phillies tomorrow at 4:45 PM MDT. Germán Márquez (0-0, 4.67 ERA) will face off against Zach Eflin (0-1, 5.27 ERA). The Rockies will need to clean up their game if they want to continue taking series wins.