Colorado Rockies morning after: A loss in a familiar fashion that likely puts their playoff hopes to bed

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SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA – SEPTEMBER 22: Charlie Blackmon #19 of the Colorado Rockies hits an RBI single in the top of the sixth inning against the San Francisco Giants at Oracle Park on September 22, 2020 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Lachlan Cunningham/Getty Images) /

The Colorado Rockies lost on Tuesday night to the San Francisco Giants by a score of 5-2 in an all-too-familiar fashion.

The Colorado Rockies lost their 30th game of the season Tuesday, ensuring that at best, they will be a .500 team in 2020. They lost by a score of 5-2 to the San Francisco Giants and the reasons why they lost the game were the reasons why the Rockies have been losing for the better part of a month: the lack of offense and a bad bullpen.

The Rockies scored seven runs on Monday against the Giants for a win, gaining one game on each the Giants, Phillies, Mets, and Brewers (the teams ahead of them in the second NL Wild Card race).

It looked like the offense would continue in the first inning of Tuesday’s game since they started the game off with two singles by Raimel Tapia and Kevin Pillar, who had an excellent night. Trevor Story flew out for the first out but Tapia advanced to third. Pillar stole the first of two on the night to get into scoring position himself.

But then the Rockies problems with hitting with runners in scoring position came up once again. Two runners in scoring position and one out. Charlie Blackmon strikes out swinging and Josh Fuentes lines out to left to end the frame.

Overall, that was, essentially, the story of the night on offense. They went 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position, only had one extra-base hit (a Pillar RBI double in the 7th), and they had four stolen bases (one each by Matt Kemp and Charlie Blackmon with two from Pillar).

Tapia, Pillar, and Kemp went for 6-for-10 with the double, an RBI, and three walks. Everyone else went 2-for-24 with an RBI (from Blackmon) and a walk.

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA – SEPTEMBER 22: Kyle Freeland #21 of the Colorado Rockies pitches in the bottom of the first inning against the San Francisco Giants at Oracle Park on September 22, 2020 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Lachlan Cunningham/Getty Images) /

The Rockies starting pitching was good. The bullpen? Well…

Pitching wise, Kyle Freeland did not seem to have his best stuff or control on the mound but he was able to work himself out of some jams. He gave the Rockies six innings, only allowing five hits and two runs (both earned). He walked three and only struck out one.

However, since Rockies manager Bud Black determined that Yency Almonte was unavailable due to pitching in the last two games, Mychal Givens was unavailable since he pitched in the last three straight games, and Tyler Kinley was unavailable since he has pitched in three of the Rockies last four games, the Rockies were left without many reliable options.

Almonte and Givens have struggled a bit in those last few games but, perhaps, it’s because they received such little work in the previous week (Almonte had six days of rest and Givens had seven). They received that time off because they were, essentially, tired, when the Rockies were in the fight for their playoff hopes.

As a result, Carlos Estevez was brought into the game into the seventh inning on Thursday (when Freeland last started) and the game was over after he allowed two inherited runners and four runs of his own.

On Tuesday, it was Jairo Diaz, who started with a fresh, clean inning. But he was facing Rockies killer Alex Dickerson to lead off the inning in a game tied at 2. As you might expect, the move did not work for the Rockies. Dickerson hit his tenth home run of the season to make it 3-2 and the game was, essentially, over right then and there.

However, Diaz allowed a double to Joey Bart, a single to Austin Slater. AJ Ramos came on in relief after the Slater single and he allowed the backbreaker: a two-run double to Bradon Belt to make it 5-2 Giants.

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA – SEPTEMBER 21: Alex Dickerson #12 of the San Francisco Giants reacts after hitting a solo home run in the bottom of the seventh inning against the Colorado Rockies at Oracle Park on September 21, 2020 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Lachlan Cunningham/Getty Images) /

Alex Dickerson has absolutely killed the Rockies in 2020 and even before.

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For Dickerson, six of his ten home runs have come against the Rockies and entering Tuesday’s game, Dickerson was hitting .402/.456/.744 in 90 career plate appearances against the Rockies.

Diaz has been one of the worst relievers in all of baseball in 2020 as, after allowing three earned runs in one-third of an inning, he has an ERA of 8.50. In his last nine outings, he has an ERA of 18.00 (7 IP, 16 H, 14 R, 5 BB, 4 HR, an opponent batting average of .457, and an opponent OPS north of 1.350).

For the Rockies pitching staff in general, in the seventh inning, it has been their worst inning of the entire season. Entering Tuesday, the Rockies had a team ERA of 7.81 in the inning with an opponent slash line of .312/.393/.526.

Also, entering the game, as Patrick Saunders of The Denver Post noted on Twitter, the Rockies have a team ERA of 6.89 entering Tuesday. Only the Phillies have been worse.

To top that off, though, the Rockies team ERA since August 9 (after the Rockies started the season with a record of 11-3): 8.25. That ERA in that span is the worst in baseball by more than a full run (the Phillies are second-worst).

Even worse than that, the Rockies have a strand rate of 61.2 percent. That is the worst number in Rockies history and it is the worst number for any bullpen for any team since 1953 (h/t to Bryan Kilpatrick of Mile High Sports on Twitter for that one).

Next. The Rockies are playing a numbers game in the final road trip. dark

Whether you want to blame Bud Black for not using his better relievers in Almonte, Givens, and Kinley on Tuesday, those three possibly telling Black on Tuesday (or before) that they couldn’t pitch, the bullpen in general, the offense in general, or a combination of some or all of them, it really does not matter at this point. The Rockies likely needed to go 8-0 on their roadtrip to keep their hopes alive and they are 1-1 through two games.

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