Colorado Rockies v. New York Yankees Game 1 morning after: Further into the pit of despair

How far does the pit of despair go for the Colorado Rockies? Nobody knows.

The Colorado Rockies lost 8-2 on Friday, as they have lost their fifth straight game on Friday. This loss started their 3-game series with the New York Yankees as well as their 10-game road trip that will determine their fate in the 2019 season and, potentially, beyond.

The Rockies started off the game well as they got a solo home run from Ryan McMahon and a RBI double from Garrett Hampson in the second inning, who was a late addition to the lineup after David Dahl was scratched due to an ankle injury he sustained in Wednesday’s game. After the game, Rockies manager Bud Black described it as a “bad foot.” The decision to scratch Dahl came from Dahl and the trainers based on how he felt.

After Hampson advanced to third on an error by shortstop Gleyber Torres on the double, Charlie Blackmon flew out into a 7-2 double play as former Rockies Mike Tauchman threw Hampson out at the plate by a fairly wide margin.

On the pitching front, Kyle Freeland wasn’t terrible for the Rockies on the pitching but he was not good for them either. Freeland started out well as he only allowed a walk and single in the first two innings and he entered the third inning with only 36 pitches thrown. In the third inning, though, he had some issues which ended up costing the Rockies big time.

After striking out Tauchman to lead off, former Rockies DJ LeMahieu singled to his friend and old teammate Blackmon in right. Freeland then walked the next two batters, Aaron Judge and Gary Sanchez, on a total of ten pitches to load the bases for Edwin Encarnacion.

Encarnacion sent a 88 MPH changeup into the left field stands, 364 feet away. That puts the Yankees in the lead by a score of 4-2 and turned the tides for the rest of the game for the Yankees and the lead was never relinquished.

Yency Almonte relieved Freeland after throwing 90 pitches in just four innings and Almonte allowed three runs of his own in two innings. The Rockies offense only mustered six baserunners after the second (including one on catcher’s interference) and only one baserunner from the 6th inning on.

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In the 9th inning, after a borderline strike call by plate umpire Doug Eddings and a check swing strike three to Chris Iannetta to record the second out of the inning, Bud Black was ejected from the game after shouting numerous times that Eddings call on the check swing was “bull****” from the dugout (and Black never came out of the dugout).

Bud Black spoke about the ejection after the game with the media (h/t Tracy Ringolsby of Inside the Seams) and said that it was mainly on the strike call to Iannetta but also, partially, the check swing.

“I think Doug Eddings is a fine umpire,” said Black in his postgame presser, “[but] I just thought from my angle that Chris didn’t go [around].”

However, it wasn’t really a “rally the troops” kind of ejection as the Rockies proverbial goose had already been cooked for a while by that point and the game ended less than three minutes later.

With Freeland being saddled with the loss, his stretch of games without a win goes up to nine, as his last win was on April 18 against the Phillies. The Rockies also drop to five games below .500 at 46-51, which is tied for last in the NL West and it puts their playoff future and their hope for buying at the trade deadline more in doubt.

The Rockies will try to snap their five game losing skid and turn the corner from their 13 losses in 17 games with the earliest game of the day on Saturday with an 11 AM MT start time. The game will be simulcast on MLB Network live and it will also be MLB.TV’s free game of the day. You can also listen to the game on KOA 850 AM and the rest of the Rockies Radio Network.