Just A Little Over-Matched

Robert Mayer-USA TODAY Sports

All that needs to be said to summarize Saturday night’s 3-0 Rockies loss to the Miami Marlins is Jose Fernandez  vs Jeff Manship. In average fan terminology that would be “Wild Thing” Vaughn  vs The Bad News Bears. Manship has only 44 appearances in five seasons of bouncing back and forth from the minors, with a career ERA of 6.44 alongside.

Fernandez, on the other hand, is a 21-year-old phenom whose name you would know if it weren’t for Yasiel Puig and the Marlins’ horrible record. Fernandez, who turned 21 after the All-Star break, was an All-Star himself. With a record of 9-5 with a 2.41 ERA, Fernandez has also pitched in ten no decisions in which he allowed two runs or fewer this year. Not too bad for a debut season on a horrible team.

Although the 28-year-old Manship was severely over-matched on paper, he did not pitch poorly by Rockies standards (six innings, three earned runs, on just four hits). Even rookie Rob Scahill pitched two scoreless innings of relief. The issues for the Rockies came from Fernandez’s seven scoreless innings and two shutdown innings by the Miami bullpen, which was topped off by Steve Cishek‘s 28th save in 30 attempts.

Once again the Rockies bats failed to show up the same night that the Rockies pitching did show up. Colorado only collected four hits total. Perhaps the biggest upside of the game for the Rockies was that two of those hits were collected by Todd Helton, putting his career total at 2,496. Which raised the odds of hit number 2,500 occurring at Coors Field, assuming of course the 40 year old does not collect four hits on Sunday before a nine game home stand that begins Monday.