Rockies bats blow opportunity for series win

The day belonged to 23-year old starter Sandy Alcantara.

The scouting report said to be on the lookout for wildness from the young man with electric stuff. But there was no wildness to be found on this day as he stayed on the corners of the strike zone all afternoon, stifling to the Colorado Rockies offense to just five hits and a 3-0 shutout.

Jon Gray pitched to a line that he and most Rockies fans would accept most of the time but it still felt a bit underwhelming.

On the plus side, he by no means imploded or allowed any single inning to get away from him. And there were a few opportunities to frustrations to get the better of him, including the first sequence of the game that saw Rosell Herrera struck by a pitch and steal a base before an out had been recorded.

But Gray worked out of that jam, tallying two strikeout on his way to 10 for the game. This was the 13th time Gray has reached double-digit strikeouts in a game in his career.

It looked like the Rockies might actually score first in the top of the third when Tony Wolters led things off with a double then moved to third on a sac bunt from Gray.

Charlie Blackmon popped up to the catcher but David Dahl ripped one down the first base line that seemed destined to be a base hit. But Neil Walker was able to get some leather on it and had it bounce fortunately to him in time to make the final out at first and keep Colorado off the board.

A leadoff walk in the bottom of the fourth came back to haunt Gray, as it so often does. Walker followed the free pass to Brian Johnson who moved to third on the hit. Gray got a weak ground out from Starlin Castro that failed to advance the runners but Jorge Alfaro, the prized return in the J.T. Realmuto trade, went down and lined a low fastball into center field, scoring a pair.

JT Riddle got Gray, as he did Freeland in the opener, for a solo home run in the seventh. He bounced back to get Peter O’Brien on a ground out and Lewis Brinson on his final punch out of the game because he was removed from the game right after that.

He had fallen behind Alcantara 3-0 and there was a visit from the trainer, Keith Dugger, but it appears to have been precautionary and Gray seemed to want to stay in the game.

Harrison Musgrave inherited the tough count but came back to strike out Alcantara to end the inning.

He stayed on in the eighth and retired Herrera and Anderson before giving way to Wade Davis.

Davis walked Walker (appropriate, I suppose) and allowed him to swipe second but got Castro on the ground to finish the frame.

Colorado had one final chance in the top of the ninth. Blackmon led things off with a double into the opposite gap and Dahl reached on a walk. But Nolan Arenado hit on off the end of the bat on the first pitch he saw, Trevor Story struck out on a breaking pitch out of the zone, and Ryan McMahon popped up against Sergio Romo to end the game.

Final Stats

Jon Gray: 6.2 IP, 5 H, 3 ER, 1 BB, 10 K

Harrison Musgrave: 1 IP, 0 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 1 K

Wade Davis: 0.1 IP, 0 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 0 K

What’s Next

It’s over to Tampa Bay for the Rockies to take on the Rays. Chad Bettis will make his first start of the season against a pitcher who has yet to be announced. First pitch at 5:10 Mountain Time.