Colorado Rockies morning after: This all seems way too familiar

SAN FRANCISCO — The Colorado Rockies tumbled out of first place in the National League West on Saturday night, thanks to another evening of offensive frustration. However, their season is not over. Repeating, their season is not over.

One night after mustering just two hits, the Colorado Rockies had just seven (including five singles) on Saturday night and once again didn’t score a run, falling to the San Francisco Giants in a 3-0 loss. Couple that with a 17-4 win by the Los Angeles Dodgers in St. Louis earlier in the day and Colorado is officially in second place in the National League West with 14 games left in the regular season.

Contrary to what you might believe or what you might read on social media, the Rockies will actually take the field on Sunday. They will look to awaken their slumbering bats, a very familiar scenario that follows Colorado’s last trip to AT&T Park in late June. On that trip, Colorado scored two combined runs in two games (losing both) before rebounding with a 9-8 win on DJ LeMahieu’s ninth-inning homer.

Times seemed like they were ending in late June here in San Francisco. They probably feel like that as well now. However, they weren’t then and they certainly aren’t now.

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Down by a half-game in the NL West standings, the Rockies will head to Los Angeles next in a series that could well determine their postseason fate. Colorado still has its own destiny in its hands, despite being unable to do anything at the plate on consecutive nights at chilly and breezy AT&T Park.

"“We’ve talked about this all year, right? Where this is headed. It’s going to be a tight race,” Colorado manager Bud Black told Rox Pile and other reporters after the loss. “We’ve talked about that for a month. I don’t see that any different right now.”"

What’s the silver lining? With Los Angeles winning in St. Louis, the Cardinals slid behind Colorado in the Wild Card standings. The Rockies now own the second Wild Card spot.

German Marquez did what he could to keep the Rockies in the game, but still surrendered seven hits over six innings. A pair of runs in the second provided an all-too-familiar feeling of the Rockies being down quickly. Another run scored in the third on a wild pitch, but Marquez limited the damage by striking out Brandon Crawford and Nick Hundley with runners at second and third and just one out.

It was the 10^th consecutive quality start for the 23-year-old Marquez, who finished with four strikeouts and now has 199 for the campaign.

Madison Bumgarner, meanwhile, extended his scoreless streak at home to more than 20 innings with six innings of shutout pitching. The veteran now has a 1.34 ERA in nine home starts, so perhaps it’s no surprise Colorado struggled again on Saturday. He needed just 64 pitches in those six innings to corral Colorado’s bats, showing just how anxious the Rockies were at the plate.

That’s not to say that Colorado didn’t have its chances on Saturday. The Rockies were 0-for-10 with runners in scoring position, continuing a trend that has been ugly all season.

The sun will rise on Sunday. It’s predicted to be a beautiful, cool day in San Francisco. Who knows, maybe the sunshine will be just the tonic that Colorado’s offense needs. It worked in late June. The Rockies desperately need it to work again on Sunday.