Tyler Chatwood Struggles In Rockies’ Loss To Diamondbacks

Colorado Rockies road ace Tyler Chatwood continues to struggle at home as the Arizona Diamondbacks take the series opener 10-5.

Tyler Chatwood has made his case for never pitching at home again. After eight innings of three-hit, shutout baseball in San Diego last Wednesday, he only lasted six innings on Monday, throwing the same number of pitches. Until the fifth, he was more than serviceable. The D-Backs created traffic on the base paths, but after a run in the first, they were all stranded.

And then the fifth inning happened. We were all at the bottom of our fifths after this one. With two outs, helped by the wind, Chatwood gave up a solo home run to Jean Segura. After a walk and a single, Jake Lamb positively crushed a home run that needed no wind at all. A double and a triple later, Arizona was up 6-4. It was good to see Chatwood come back and pitch a clean sixth for his own sake, but it was too late to save his start.

Meanwhile, Diamondbacks starter Archie Bradley was way better than he had any right to be. The Rockies got off to a fast start against him as Charlie Blackmon and Trevor Story teed off for a couple of line drives. Bradley was pounding the strike zone, but after Story, the Rockies struggled to make quality contact. They were always just a little bit behind Bradley. This was never more painfully true than in the third when Tony Wolters reached base on an error with two outs. Chatwood “singled” (according to the official scorer, who apparently didn’t see the fielder boot the ball) and Blackmon walked to load the bases. Perfect opportunity for Story’s first grand slam, right? No, he struck out looking on what was very clearly a ball to end the inning.

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The good guys did manage to put up a few runs in the fourth, which ended when Story ran into out number three at third base. There was some Twitter disagreement about whether this was acceptable because, on the one hand, you never want to make the third out there, but on the other hand, Chatwood was coming from second and ran through a stop sign from Stu Cole. If Story doesn’t run into no man’s land the way he did, Chatwood draws the throw and the run doesn’t score. Whatever you think of Story’s decision, it was not the difference in the game.

Scott Oberg and Justin Miller poured gasoline on the fire, and the Rockies squandered their scoring opportunity in the eighth. Gerardo Parra led off with a double and then inexplicably tried to steal third. He was easily gunned down. Two singles and a balk followed; Parra would have scored with no problem. Instead, Wolters struck out and pinch hitter Ryan Raburn lined out to end the inning. It’s just not acceptable to start the inning with a double and not score. They made a feeble attempt at a comeback in the ninth, but only one run resulted.

Next: Looking Back at a Historic Inning for the Rockies

It feels like the Rockies may finally have fixed some of their road woes, but now they have to get their act together at home again. The NL West is playing bad baseball this season and it’s anybody’s division. Someone needs to take advantage. The Rockies have not yet demonstrated that they can be that someone.