Rockies 4, Reds 3: Quality pitching is pretty Kuhl

The Colorado Rockies relied on excellent pitching and one strong inning of offense to topple the struggling Cincinnati Reds for a 4-3 victory to finish off the month of April. The Rockies finish their first month of the 2022 season with a 12-9 record while the Reds fall to 3-18. Starter Chad Kuhl was excellent yet again as the Rockies earned the series win and are set up for a possible sweep tomorrow afternoon.

A Kuhl Spring Evening

Rockies starting pitcher Chad Kuhl was excellent tonight as he put up not only the longest outing of the rotation so far, but also the longest outing of his career. Across 7 ¹⁄₃ innings Kuhl was sharp and efficient, throwing 83 pitches with 59 strikes. Kuhl allowed just three runs on five hits for his third consecutive quality start. Two of those hits were solo home runs, the first he’s allowed on the season, but he kept the damage to a minimum. He did run into some trouble in the top of the fifth inning, but worked out of it deftly. After starting the inning by giving up strong singles to three straight batters despite being ahead in the count, Kuhl induced a ground ball into a double play to concede the run bit limit the damage. An easy flyout would end the inning. Kuhl also struck out four batters and issued no free passes.

Quiet Until it Wasn’t

The Rockies were seemingly stumped by Reds starter Connor Overton through the first five innings. Overton held the Rockies to just two hits through five innings, and not a single runner had advanced to second base. When Alan Trejo hit a single for the Rockies’ third hit of the night in the bottom of the sixth, Overton was pulled in favor of the Reds bullpen. Then it got noisy. Connor Joe drew a four pitch walk and gave the Rockies their first runner on second of the night. Things got Nazty when Charlie Blackmon clobbered a middle-middle slider that was just inches shy of being a home run, bouncing off the out of town scoreboard and allowing both Trejo and Joe to score. Randal Grichuk then drew a walk to set up Ryan McMahon for a bases clearing triple hit with authority. The Rockies overall scored four runs on five hits, going 2-for-4 with RISP and leaving two runners stranded.

Bullpen Brisk and Beautiful

Chad Kuhl only left 1 ²⁄₃ innings for the bullpen at the tail end of the game, and they got it done quickly. After a rough road trip saw the league’s lowest bullpen ERA skyrocket to the league’s highest, the bullpen was efficient and commanding to finish out the win. Tyler Kinley threw seven pitches—six for strikes—and struck out both batters he faced. Closer Daniel Bard unbuttoned his top buttons and played us out to Palladio with an eight pitch ninth inning. He struck out two batters for his sixth save of the 2022 season.

Coming up next

Tomorrow afternoon will be the finale of this three game series against the Reds. Kyle Freeland will look to build on his last outing and earn his first win of the season. The Reds will be sending out the lefty Reiver Sanmartin, who has a 10.91 ERA through three starts. First pitch is at 1:10 PM MDT.