The Rockies Cannot Beat the Astros, and Other Stories

This looks familiar, doesn’t it?

The Rockies nearly sweep a tough division rival at home, and then a week later they lie down and quietly die beneath the wheels of the second-worst team in baseball.

It’s ugly, folks. And last night I left a Rockies game early for the first time since childhood.

Don’t put too much of the blame on Juan Nicasio, though his inability to go deep into games is starting to become more than just a little issue. He was solid through 5, surrendering just 1 run on 5 hits. His control wasn’t perfect, as evidenced by not one but TWO walks of the opposing pitcher, but he was serviceable.

Juan Nicasio: I see long relief in your future. Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports

Of course, in the meantime the Rockies were making all sorts of small offensive blunders, the type that make me cringe and think that the apocalypse is coming and there will probably be much weeping and gnashing of teeth. This mostly had to do with leaving runners in scoring position in nearly every inning, despite FOUR errors by the Astros. FOUR. Three of those were in the same inning, and the bases were loaded with 1 out when Dexter Fowler killed the rally dead with a GIDP. Not okay.

Things began to fall apart for the Rockies in the 6th inning when Nicasio put runners on 2nd and 3rd with nobody out. Then Carlos Pena hit a dribbler to Todd Helton, who had no play anywhere, mostly because Nicasio was late covering 1st and could only manage to drop the ball once it was thrown to him. The Astros’ bad defense always rubs off on us sooner or later. So Walt Weiss decided to bring in Wilton Lopez, because he is SO good under pressure when the game is on the line. You know what happened next. Back-to-back homers  and the Astros led by 4.

In the bottom half, the Rockies mounted a feeble rally when Carlos Gonzalez hit an RBI single. Then the Astros saw fit to replace their starter with a guy who had given up 23 runs in 22 innings pitched. Thanks to the Rockies, his ERA is now a full run lower, because Troy Tulowitzki grounded out right to the shortstop.

Only Helton managed to contribute after that, with a sac fly in the bottom of the 9th, but it was too late. This team stinks. And now watch them go win every game against the Dodgers this weekend by 7 runs.