Colorado Rockies: Daniel Murphy’s injury, Tyler Anderson’s two-out trouble

MIAMI — After a pair of history-making starts to open the season, it might not be much of a surprise that the Colorado Rockies were due to come back to earth on the mound on Saturday night against the Miami Marlins.

While Tyler Anderson wasn’t able to continue the rare run of two-hit quality starts like Kyle Freeland and German Marquez did in the pair of wins to open the Colorado Rockies season, he also wasn’t able to close out innings. And that’s something Miami capitalized on to hand Colorado its first loss of the season.

Anderson allowed two two-out run-scoring doubles to Miguel Rojas in the game’s first four innings that helped the Marlins to a 5-2 advantage on their way to a 7-3 loss before 7,642 fans.

In five innings of work, Anderson allowed nine hits and five runs. He peppered the strike zone, throwing 62 of his 85 pitches for strikes, but Marlins batters weren’t often fooled. He struck out just three and had just one inning where he retired the side in order.

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Last season, Colorado pitchers held their opponents to a .229 average with two outs. Miami batters were 5-for-10 on Saturday night against Anderson with four RBI.

Off the field, the big news for the Rockies was the injury to Daniel Murphy‘s left index finger that happened Friday night and kept him out of the lineup on Saturday. Following Saturday’s loss, Murphy confirmed that he had a fracture and was likely heading to the injured list.

He will likely see a hand specialist on Monday.

"“It was sore but I was able to finish the game and take some at-bats,” Murphy said. “I came in today to get an X-ray of it and it ended up being, from what I understand, what we were hoping it wasn’t. There are two ways it could’ve gone and it looks like it went the way we were hoping it didn’t.”"

Murphy refused to give a timetable on his return and added that he had never dealt with an injury of this type in the past.

The injury will likely mean more playing time for Mark Reynolds and Ryan McMahon at first base with Garrett Hampson getting additional reps at second base with McMahon scooting over to cover for Murphy. It also means the Rockies will call someone up to take Murphy’s place on the active roster. Could that be the versatile Pat Valaika?

Ironically, it’s a similar situation to the last time when Reynolds was signed by the Rockies. Ian Desmond suffered a fractured hand in spring training and missed time, giving Reynolds a bigger opportunity to play first.