Colorado Rockies Close Winning Road Trip

After taking a hard loss in extra innings to San Francisco on Saturday, the Colorado Rockies bounced back on Mother’s Day to best the Giants 2-0.

Rockies starter Eddie Butler tossed a gem, earning another win on the road for a Rockies team that traditionally doesn’t get the job done away from altitude, let alone at AT&T Park. In six innings of scoreless work, Butler struck out six Giants and walked two. The great game by Butler is extremely encouraging as he’s still trying to find himself as a big league pitcher.

Once regarded as a top pitching prospect, inconsistency has plagued Butler for much of his professional career. Hopefully Sunday’s outing will carry over into Butler’s next start and lead to him staying with the big league club once and for all. Today’s start by Butler coupled with yesterday’s scoreless work by Jon Gray are definitely causes for optimism going forward.

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Eddie Butler showed a lot of growth and poise on the mound that he’s been lacking in other seasons. In a tough third inning, Butler loaded the bases with only one out but came back to get consecutive strikeouts to end the inning. Granted one of the strikeouts was Jeff Samardzija, but Jeff has been known to handle the bat quite well for a pitcher.

Another youngster who continues to make a daily impact is Trevor Story. With one out in the top of the first, Story doubled to left and was brought into score by the RBI machine that is Nolan Arenado. Arenado’s RBI triple in the first was part of a three-hit day for the All-Star third baseman. Gerardo Parra had the club’s only other RBI on the day when he hit a single in the third inning to score Carlos Gonzalez. Nolan was the only Colorado Rockies player to collect more than one hit. Although the bats weren’t loud, two runs would be all that Butler and the bullpen would need.

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There are a few big takeaways from today’s victory. With combination of Butler, Gray’s performance yesterday and the play of Story at shortstop, it appears that the first wave of young talent in Colorado’s farm system is staring to make a significant impact. All reports from down on the farm indicate that more reinforcements are on the way. David Dahl, one of the top outfield prospects in all of baseball is hitting dingers and stealing bases in Double-A, while top pitching prospect Jeff Hoffman is terrorizing Triple-A with a sub 2.00 ERA. Don’t expect to see these names in the program tomorrow, but they will certainly be making an impact at the big league level sooner rather than later.

Next: Jon Gray Shows Growth

Today’s victory caps off a four-game set with arch-nemesis San Francisco that saw Colorado claim two victories. Today’s win also closes a 10-game road trip for Colorado. For the first time in their history, Colorado ends a long road trip with a winning record. Colorado finished 6-4 with stops in Arizona, San Diego, and San Francisco.

The Colorado Rockies face off against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Monday at Coors Field.

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