Rockies blow multiple opportunities in close loss to Reds

The Colorado Rockies had plenty of chances to win their third straight game and take the series from the Cincinnati Reds but they just couldn’t come through in a clutch moment.

Starter Chi Chi Gonzalez was once again solid, pitching into the sixth inning and giving up just three runs on two mistake pitches. But the Rockies offense went silent again and could not back up his effort.

The Reds took the lead in the lead in the second when Josh VanMeter timed up a low fastball from Gonzalez and hit it on a line just high enough to clear the wall in right-center field.

They extended their advantage to 3-0 in the third when Eugenio Suarez followed up a walk from Joey Votto by clobbering a hanging breaking ball into the second deck in left.

Colorado struck back in the fourth with a manufactured run and getting the benefit of a rarely-enforced balk rule. Trevor Story led the frame off by legging out an infield single. Clearly concerned about the speed he just displayed, Anthony DeSclafani fired over to first but Votto was not covering the bag. First-base umpire Bill Miller called a balk on a play you almost never see and Story was awarded second base.

The Rockies took advantage of the opportunity by getting back-to-back flyballs to the outfield from David Dahl and Nolan Arenado that moved Story to second and then scored him to make it a 3-1 ballgame.

They had chances in both the fifth and sixth to pull closer or even but came up empty.

Ryan McMahon led off the fifth with a walk after falling behind in the count 0-2. He moved up on a passed ball after Tony Wolters struck out and got to third on a groundout from Gonzalez. Charlie Blackmon walked to put runners at the corners with two away but Story struck out to end the threat.

Dahl and Arenado gave promise to the sixth with consecutive singles to lead off the frame. But Daniel Murphy flew out to shallow left, Ian Desmond flew out to right-center, and McMahon grounded out to first, putting a halt on the rally just as quickly as it had begun.

Gonzalez got Suarez to ground out and Yasiel Puig to line out to begin the bottom of the sixth but VanMeter produced another good swing and came up with a single to center. Bud Black decided that would be it for the spot-starter and went to Jairo Diaz out of the bullpen.

Diaz threw one slider in the dirt that Wolters picked and fired down to second base to nail VanMeter on a stolen base attempt, bringing the inning to a close.

Another chance slipped through the Rockies fingers in the seventh when a one-out double from Raimel Tapia was followed up by a bad read on a liner to left from Blackmon that saw the speedy outfielder run into a double play.

Other than that, Colorado couldn’t get much going against the Reds bullpen.

The Rockies fell to 49-56.