Rockies Defeat Brewers 4-1 In Final 2016 Series Opener

Good Chad Bettis was in the house once again. The Colorado Rockies handled the Milwaukee Brewers in front of a packed Coors Field tonight by a score of 4-1.

It was fireworks night at Coors Field, which meant a full house. Of course, neither the Rockies or the Brewers is playing for anything at this point, but some nights you come to the ballpark for a good game. Tonight was one of those nights.

Bettis started for the Rockies and turned in a solid performance, the kind that has fortunately become more common lately. I feel good about Bettis being a fixture in this rotation for the first time. Tonight he went 6 2/3 innings, threw 100 pitches, and allowed 11 men on base. Normally a line like that would seem not quite good enough.

However, Bettis managed his traffic and only gave up one run.

He labored with his pitch count in a couple of innings, but he also had some filthy strikeouts, and his ball-to-strike ratio finished at a not-half-bad 38:62. The only hitter he couldn’t figure out was Chris Carter, who homered and doubled off him. The double came to nothing thanks to a spectacular throw from David Dahl to nail the play at the plate with no cut-off man when Carter tried coming around to score.

The Rockies’ offense didn’t mess up Milwaukee pitching like we might have hoped, but they did enough. In the first, with DJ LeMahieu on base, Nolan Arenado hit a line drive that landed in the fountain. Next in the second inning, Daniel Descalso led off with a single, moved to second on Bettis’ bunt, and then scored on a Charlie Blackmon single. In the third, Arenado doubled and Dahl drove him in. After that, the Rockies couldn’t push anything across the plate, but thanks to Bettis’ performance and those of his successors, Carlos Estevez and Adam Ottavino, they didn’t need to.

Final score: 4-1.

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Some web-gem defense, particularly the throw by Dahl and a couple of terrific plays by Arenado helped Bettis. It’s hard not to get a little bit giddy thinking about next year’s lineup, provided it includes Dahl, Arenado, Blackmon, Carlos Gonzalez, LeMahieu, and Trevor Story. We can’t be sure which of those guys will still be in purple pinstripes next year, but is it too much to hope for all of them? The only potential problem is the existence of Gerardo Parra, whose contract makes him both close to untradable and tough to bench. How the Rockies manage the outfield situation will be a big story this winter.

Speaking of big stories, our friend LeMahieu is positioned to win the National League batting title. He’s really the only one who could mess that up; his closest competition, Daniel Murphy, is injured and only pinch-hitting for Washington between now and the postseason. The two are currently separated by only one point, and since the Rockies aren’t playing for anything as a team, Walt Weiss hopes to protect LeMahieu’s average. This is why LeMahieu was taken out of the game in the top of the fourth tonight, after going 0-for-2.

Next: Colorado Rockies Countdown: Top Five Second Basemen

Whether or not you agree with that decision, it’s fun that somebody on the team is still playing for something!