The Colorado Rockies dropped their series opener at home against the San Francisco giants with a combination of poor pitching and a failure to drive in runs despite making plenty of contact. With today’s loss, the Rockies have officially lost 100 games in a season for the third consecutive year and have 24 games left to keep adding to the loss total. They still need three wins to avoid setting the all-time record for most losses in a 162-game season.
The Giants wouldn’t Chase
Chase Dollander’s afternoon started on a less than
cheerful note when—in the first inning—he threw a cutter to Rafael Devers that failed to, well, cut. The result of the pitch that landed in the middle of the strike zone was the ball taking a very quick trip over the outfield wall at 114.5 MPH. It was the Giant’s hardest hit home run of the Statcast era (since 2015).
The home run set the tone for another difficult Dollander start. He was more efficient, getting through five innings on 84 pitches, but struggled with his command. He gave up six earned runs on five hits and three walks, and did not tally his first strikeout of the afternoon until the fifth inning—an inning where he gave up three earned runs. He also plunked two Giants hitters.
Mop-Up Duty
The Rockies chose to conserve their bullpen this afternoon, using just two pitchers after Dollander left the game. Anthony Molina pitched 2 2/3 innings and struck out three batters, but gave up another two runs to the Giants via a two-run home run in the top of the seventh.
The newly recalled Ryan Rolison pitched the final 1 1/3 innings of today’s game, and was showcasing some increased velocity on his four seam fastball. Against the first batter he faced—and eventually struck out—he clocked 95.7 MPH on the pitch. Rolsion gave up three hits, all singles, but did not allow any runs to score.
Plenty of hits, not many runs
For five innings the Rockies had very little in terms of decisive answers against Giants starting pitcher Kai-Wei Teng. Despite entering the game with a career 9.25 ERA, 6.3 walks per nine innings, and 7.0 strikeouts per nine innings, Teng absolutely baffled the Rockies. Despite giving up plenty of hits, he held them scoreless for five innings and tallied a career high eight strikeouts without issuing a walk.
Broadcaster for former Rockies player Cory Sullivan put the Rockies on blast post-game, saying “he didn’t limit [the Rockies], the [Rockies] limited themselves.” He expressed frustration at how much the Rockies chased and whiffed on Teng’s pitches.
The Rockies outhit the Giants 13 to 11, but were only able to score just two runs. Both of those runs came in the bottom of the sixth inning. Ezequiel Tovar’s 100th career double put runners in scoring position and drove Teng from the game. Against reliever Joel Peguero, a Kyle Karros ground out and a Yanquiel Fernández double brought in the Rockies’ only two runs of the game.
Despite their 13 hits—four of which were for extra bases—the Rockies struck out 10 times, grounded into three double plays—with Mickey Moniak doing so twice—and went just 2-for-12 with runners in scoring position.
Coming Up Next
The Rockies will play the Giants again tomorrow night. The right-handed Logan Webb will face off against the left-handed Kyle Freeland. First pitch is scheduled for 6:40 PM MDT.
