Rockies Split With Marlins, Continue to Experience Setbacks

Rockies 3, Marlins 2

Let’s start with the bad news: just about every Rockie is now officially ailing somewhere in the neighborhood of his left side. Given the fact that we are struggling to win games as it is, I’m not entirely sure we can really handle more guys going down. And yet, Eric Young Jr, strained rib cage. And yet, Josh Rutledge, tightness in quad. It never ends.

On to the good news though: this game was a win, and featured some tidy performances. Drew Pomeranz got the ball to start, and might have gone well beyond the 4 innings he lasted if he’d been allowed a more generous number of pitches. In those innings he gave up just one earned run, on a homer by … wait for it … John Buck! (You thought I was going to say Giancarlo Stanton. No, he will not become the first player ever to go deep in his first seven games at a road park.) Another unearned run scored when the very first Marlins baserunner reached on a crummy throw by Rutledge. Do we blame the quad? I don’t know. I do know that the quad was not at fault for Rutledge literally knocking the ball out of Andrew Brown‘s glove in a later inning. At least no runs resulted from that mistake.

It was a solid outing for Pomeranz, despite 4 walks. It’s frustrating that we can’t see these young guys go deeper into games, because that’s a necessary skill for them to have. I want to know if Pomeranz can maintain his velocity through 6 innings, and if he can get out of a bases-loaded jam. I’m sure he has done  both of those things, but it’s been so long I can’t even remember.

The “guess what, you’re a long reliever now” long reliever of the day was Adam Ottavino, who pitched a stellar 3 innings with just 1 hit. He wisely pitched around Stanton and did a fine job dealing with the Brown-Rutledge fielding situation, which led to 2 runners in scoring position and no outs. Matt Belisle and Rafael Betancourt handled the 8th and 9th, respectively.

As for the offense, it had one good inning, but one was all it needed. It’s satisfying to pull out a win against a pitcher like Josh Johnson, who’s always a threat to no-hit. The 4th inning began with a single by Rutledge and an RBI double by Dexter Fowler. Jordan Pacheco drove in the other two runs with a first-pitch-swinging homer that scored Fowler. Normally I hate first pitch swinging, but Pacheco can pretty much do whatever he wants. The other guys should really take notes.

My fave Charlie Blackmon finally got his first start of the season, and used it to go hitless and strand 4 runners. Ah, well. I suppose it’s possible his June 2011 was a fluke.

A winning homestand! I didn’t think that would ever happen again. What a lovely change of pace.