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

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.