Colorado Rockies morning after: The grade book on home opener

After opening the 2018 season with 7 games on the road, the Colorado Rockies finally returned home Friday afternoon to break in Coors Field and celebrate their 25th Anniversary as a team.  If it was anything like breaking in a baseball glove, the weather did not help. Extremely cold air and snow drifted across the Denver area on and off throughout the day. By the time first pitch rolled around, delayed an hour by snow and rain, the temperature was in the high 20s, with the windchill holding even colder than that. Eventually, however, the home nine were able to take the field and take on the Atlanta Braves for game one of 81 at home.

The Braves jumped all over German Marquez early, with Ozzie Albies sending the sixth pitch of the ballgame over the auxiliary scoreboard in right for a home run. They didn’t ease up, and after a couple walks, an RBI popup single and a two run triple, the Rockies found themselves down 4-0 before they even grabbed a bat.

They would answer in the bottom half of the inning with a run produced by a blistered, vintage RBI triple from Carlos Gonzalez. The chipping away continued in the fourth with two solo blasts from CarGo and Trevor Story to pull within a run.

All the while, German Marquez put the nightmare of a first inning behind him and navigated the next three innings scoreless before once again getting beat up in the 5th. The nail in Marquez’s coffin was a 2 run double by his opposite number, pitcher Brandon McCarthy, that extended the Braves lead back to four at 7-3.

From that point on, the Rockies bullpen surrendered just one run the remainder of the game, on a Freddie Freeman single in the sixth inning. The offense, however, couldn’t get anything going offensively after their fourth inning burst, and ultimately fell 8-3 after an uneventful and fast moving final three innings on a cold day in Denver. Brandon McCarthy gets the win and moves to 2-0, while German Marquez takes the L and falls to 0-1 on the season.

Without further ado, let’s crack open the grade book to get a better idea of the good, bad and ugly from Friday’s frigid Home Opener.

B

• Book 2, Chapter 1 for Story – Trevor Story launched his first bomb of the year into the left-center field seats in the fourth inning. The ball was a no doubter, traveling 442 feet, which is saying something considering it had to fly through Christmas weather on its way out. Trevor finished the afternoon 1-4 with the home run and two strikeouts.
• 25th Anniversary Uniforms – The Rockies finally unveiled their new 25th Anniversary hats on Friday, which feature a silver-only CR logo on the front (no purple) as well as a silver knob up on top and a patch on the side of the hat commemorating the anniversary. As with all their jerseys this season, the right sleeve boasts the same patch. I give it a B because I miss the purple a bit on the hats, but they are otherwise very sharp.

C

• The Opening Day Experience – Even before first pitch, there was somewhat of a damp blanket hanging over all the revelry and excitement of Opening Day –literally. Not only did the weather force at least half the crowd to run for cover on the concourses for most of the game, but its hard to enjoy things like a giant new video board or the pre-game awards ceremony when its 25 and snowing. We will hope for better weather at 20th & Blake in the coming days.
• Team Offense – Aside from CarGo’s two run-scoring hits and Trevor Story’s home run, the lineup went 4-31. Nolan had two of those 4 hits and the only stolen base attempt, which was successful mostly due to the fact that they didn’t react or throw the ball down to 2nd. Normally, a 3 run performance at Coors Field would receive a worse grade, but I’ll score it on a curve this once, for the weather.

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D

• Fashion Choices – The cold weather resulted in a few interesting outfits from Rockies players. There were a couple true men out there, like Scott Oberg and Bryan Shaw who went sleeveless. Brave or stupid? You make the call. Everyone else was in sleeves and many had the full masks that cover the entire face minus the eyes. My favorite however, was Ian Desmond, who played several innings at first base, with a purple Rockies beanie OVER his hat. I didn’t know that was legal, but he had the beanie’s CR logo lined up in front and he looked like the only smart one out there all of a sudden. The team gets a D for not following Ian’s lead.

F

• The Weather – No doubt about this one. In fact, I had it filled out before the first pitch was even thrown. 27 degrees at first pitch marked the second coldest temperature for a first pitch in Coors Field history, behind a 23 degree night against, go figure, the Braves in April of 2013.
• Starting Pitching – I don’t want to come off as too harsh here. I realize pitching in that kind of cold is undoubtedly difficult, but it should also be tough on the hitters. Not much was tough on the Braves batting order today, with German Marquez getting dinged for 7 earned runs on 7 hits and 4 walks in just 4.2 innings.

The Rockies will look to even this three game set against Atlanta today at 6:10 MT, when Chad Bettis will take on Anibal Sanchez in game 2.