On a hot and windy day, Sunday’s finale started off promising but ended looking incredibly lopsided. A fitting end to a series in which the Rockies made each game feel close in a way that would be difficult to understand simply by looking at the final scores.
The Rockies were ahead 3-1 heading into the sixth on the back of one of Kyle Freeland’s best starts of the season only to see it all unravel in a flash. Eventually the Brewers would come around to score eleven more times to finish off a series
sweep with a final 12-4 score.
Freeland makes Rockies history
When Kyle Freeland induced an easy fly out from Luis Rengifo in the fifth inning, he officially passed Aaron Cook to become the franchise leader in innings pitched. It came on a day in which Freeland’s results on the mound were as good as they had been all season and the fans in attendance greeted the moment with an ovation that briefly stopped play.
Leading up to that moment in the fifth, the only trouble Freeland had run into was a laborious second inning that got off to a bad start when a ten-pitch battle against Andrew Vaughn ended in a single. Vaughn would eventually come around to score on a double by Rengifo before Freeland was able to get out of the inning by inducing a ground out from Blake Perkins.
Freeland followed that second inning up with three scoreless frames featuring five ground outs. These grounders stopped Jackson Chourio, who had Freeland’s number all day, from scoring after doubling in both the third and the fifth.
Coming back out for a third time through the order in the sixth turned out to be a mistake. Freeland lasted only an additional seven pitches and allowed a loud line drive single to William Contreras who would be driven in by a triple by Vaughn that Jake McCarthy just missed on a diving play.
That was enough for Jaden Hill to be called in from the bullpen. Hill would promptly allow a home run to Brewers catcher Gary Sánchez leaving Freeland’s final line as a solid but less noteworthy three runs allowed on seven hits over five innings pitched. Todays performance lowered Freeland’s ERA on the season to a still unsightly 7.81.
An uneven offensive performance
It did not take long for the Rockies to capitalize on some shaky defense from the Brewers. In the bottom of the first, Willi Castro reached base on an infield popup that was lost in the sun before Ezequiel Tovar drove him in on a double to right center that Garrett Mitchell overran.
Tovar himself eventually came around to score on a sacrifice grounder from Hunter Goodman that Vaughn bobbled at first.
The Brewers defense tightened up and starting pitcher Shane Drohan settled down for relatively uneventful next three innings. In that span, Drohan struck out four and the only Rockies to reach base were Kyle Karros on a one out walk in the fourth and Troy Johnston who led off the third with a warning track double.
Then came the fifth where Braxton Fulford just missed a homer with a double to left center. Some old school situational hitting followed with Chad Stevens grounding out to the right side of the infield allowing Fulford to get to third. Johnston followed that up with a fly ball to Brewers left fielder Chourio who attempted, and just barely failed, to throw out Fulford at home.
After the sixth came and went in the blink of an eye, the Rockies were finally able to chase Drohan out of the game in the seventh after a McCarthy single. The Brewers bullpen was able to strand McCarthy to end the seventh. A similar story played out in the eighth when Castro plopped a bloop single but was promptly out on a Tovar initiated double play directly after.
In the bottom of the ninth, before McCarthy struck out to end the game, Goodman gave the remaining fans at Coors one last parting gift in the form of his 17th home run of the season, a solo shot to dead center.
Brewers kept piling on runs
Jaden Hill continued his recent struggles with a performance that ultimately led to the Rockies loss. Hill came in for Freeland in the fifth, allowed a home run to Sánchez on his very first pitch, and was only able to get a single out with his 22 pitches.
After the home run, Hill allowed a barrage of four more runs on a double to Mitchell, walks from both Rengifo and Joey Ortiz, and singles from both Perkins and Brice Turang. When it became clear Hill was not going to be able to get out of the inning any time soon, he was replaced by Keegan Thompson.
Thompson took the ball and was tasked with finishing out the remainder of the game regardless of how ugly things got. For the first two and two thirds innings, he managed to keep the Brewers right where they were with the only blemish being a double by Mitchell in the seventh.
Then came the ninth and, not coincidentally, Thompson’s second time through the lineup. Contreras and Vaughn opened up the frame with back-to-back singles that likely would have spelled the end of Thompson’s day if the game had been close. Instead, Thompson stayed in and went on to allow a four runs via a triple from Mitchell and doubles from Sánchez and Ortiz.
By the time Thompson was able to strike Chourio out to end the inning, the Brewers had pushed their score for the day up to 12.
Some sloppy fielding
The two-run rally in the first was kicked off when Turang lost what would have usually been an easy pop up in the sun.
Later in the game both teams began challenging pitch calls left and right. Goodman was three for five in challenges behind the plate while Sánchez, his counterpart on the Brewers only managed one success on three attempts.
In the outfield, McCarthy almost made a couple of spectacular plays thanks to his range… but didn’t manage to make the grab on either and ended up allowing a pair of triples instead. The game very well could have played out very differently if McCarthy had been able to convert these into outs.
Up Next
Tomorrow the Rockies will have an off day before the Chicago Cubs come to town on Tuesday.
The starters for that Tuesday game have yet to be announced, however, it would be both Tomoyuki Sugano (菅野智之) and Colin Rea’s natural turn in their respective rotations.
First pitch is scheduled for 6:40 PM.
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