Colorado Rockies: Ugly St. Louis series ends with walk-off loss

Well, let’s be honest, Colorado Rockies fans. After those four games, we’re just glad to see the boys in purple heading out of the St. Louis region.

Every season, the Colorado Rockies struggle mightily it seems in two locations … St. Louis and Miami. This year is no exception.

Colorado has now lost 11 of its last 14 games at Busch Stadium after St. Louis pinch-hitter Jose Martinez roped a ninth-inning, one-out, 1-2 pitch into right-center field to score Greg Garcia and Harrison Bader, erasing a 2-1 Rockies lead. It was the second walk-off win (and third overall win) of the four-game series for the Cardinals, who played very much like a team still believing they are in the hunt for a National League Wild Card spot … and they are.

The Rockies, meanwhile, dropped a chance to pull into a tie for the National League West lead. They will now head to Milwaukee to face the Brewers, who have given the Los Angeles Dodgers plenty of problems in their series at Chavez Ravine while St. Louis has been taking advantage of Colorado’s bullpen issues.

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Colorado has had its shares of tough losses this season (let’s not forget the Father’s Day heartache in Texas when Wade Davis had another blown save) but today’s loss will be magnified simply because of its timing (coming in August) and tight races for both the division and Wild Card.

In its 108^thgame of the season, the Rockies showed resiliency and solid pitching, both coming from Antonio Senzatela. The Colorado starter scattered five hits over six innings and allowed just one run. He also overcame a sixth-inning, head-shaking, two-out error by Tony Wolters, who threw to second base to try to catch a runner rather than throwing to first after Senzatela struck out Yairo Munoz to seemingly end the inning. It didn’t, and Senzatela had to strike out Bader to end the inning with bases full of Cardinals.

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Thursday’s loss will sting. There’s no question about that. However, it’s not the end of the world or even the end of Colorado’s quest for the postseason. It does, however, illustrate that Colorado’s bullpen still has some work to do (outside of Adam Ottavino) in order to build some form of confidence heading into the most critical stretch of the season.