Colorado Rockies morning after: Kyle Freeland in freefall

CINCINNATI- Kyle Freeland has made four starts for the Colorado Rockies in 2021 and he has been in freefall, as he has looked much more like the 2019 Kyle Freeland rather than the Kyle Freeland of 2018 or even 2020.

He suffered a shoulder strain toward the end of spring training and missed two months. He made his 2021 debut on May 25 and he has had poor outings in all four of his starts.

But he tied the Rockies record for home runs allowed by a single pitcher in a game with five. The previous times that a Rockies pitcher allowed that were all a decade ago or longer.

• Mark Thompson v. Atlanta (4/19/98)
• Shawn Chacon v. L.A. (AL) (7/8/01)
• Alex White v. Cincinnati (9/10/11)

They also are the eighth team in MLB history to homer in each of the first five innings of play and only the third team ever to ever have five different players accomplish this.

In total, Freeland went 4+ innings, allowing nine runs (eight earned), walking one, and striking out two.

More from Rox Pile

• A Colorado Rockies Thanksgiving
• Colorado Rockies: What if Todd Helton had played football instead?
• Colorado Rockies: Charlie Blackmon out for the season
• Colorado Rockies: Injuries shift look of roster ahead of Dodgers series
• Colorado Rockies: Has Sean Bouchard earned a second look in 2023?

Kyle Freeland had one main problem that cost the Rockies big on Friday.

After the game, manager Bud Black said that Freeland’s main issue was not locating his pitches.

“For Kyle to be effective — for a lot of pitchers, for that matter — they’ve got to be down at the knees and they’ve got to be high enough at the letters at the very top of the strike zone,” said Black. “And also, it’s getting the ball out of the middle of the plate.”

Black added that he thought it was just pitch location, and not tipping his pitches, at least of what he saw live.

Freeland agreed as he said that pitch location was his problem as he said he was “completely missing locations). He also said that he physically feels fine but it feels “about the same” as 2019, when he struggled all season long (both in the majors and in Triple-A Albuquerque).

Reliever Yency Almonte also struggled on the mound, as he has for much of the season as, in 1 2/3 innings, he walked two batters. He hadn’t allowed a run when he left the game but when Lucas Gilbreath came on to replace him in a double-switch in the 6th inning, Gilbreath inehrited a bases-loaded, two-out situation. He walked Joey Votto and Mike Freeman on back-to-back bases loaded walks to make the score 11-4 Reds at that time.

The Rockies scored one more to make it a 11-5 final. Kyle Freeland ended the game with an ERA of 9.00

The good out of the game

Ryan McMahon, who made a catrosphic fielding error in the third inning which led up to a three-home run in the third inning, redeemed himself by hitting a three-run home run in the 6th inning.

Raimel Tapia also had two hits in the game as well, elongating his hitting streak to nine games. In that streak, he is hitting .463 with (19-for-41) in that span.

After losing two straight games, the Rockies will have Germán Márquez on the mount for them against former D-Back Wade Miley. The game will start at 2:05 PM M.T.