Rockies great road trip ends with a dud

Because if you stare long enough at an infinite and chaotic universe, random patterns will start to emerge, Wednesdays’ drubbing of the Colorado Rockies by the Pittsburgh Pirates by a score of 10-2 was somehow oddly predictable.

As Bud Black would say, “That’s baseball.”

Colorado was due for a setback after clinging to some wins in which they got very little offensive output and even one in which they walked 10 batters and uncorked three wild pitches. Having secured a winning road trip and taking both series, this game that started at 10:30 AM Mountain Time had “trap” written all over it.

On the other side was a Pirates offense that was hot coming into the series and was cooled off on the first two games by a combination of dreadful weather and excellent Rockies pitching. But the bullpen especially had been just a little too perfect lately and their first real clunker of the season meant the Pirates would run away with the contest.

The warts in the offense were on full display again, though those searching for a silver lining can point to a 3-2 record without Nolan Arenado and reasonably call that a success.

Chris Iannetta’s third-inning home run was the only scoring Colorado would do until the eighth when an Ian Desmond plated the only run in a far-too-little-far-too-late rally on a groundout.

Kyle Freeland stuck to his early-season script, looking very good through his first few innings but running into some trouble finishing innings starting in the fourth.

It looked for a moment like he was out of the inning, but a 3-2 pitch on the edge was ruled a ball to David Freese and Freeland has issued a two-out walk. The Rockies southpaw then grooved a cutter to Sean Rodriguez who blasted it over the wall in left to give the Pirates the lead.

Max Moroff followed with an RBI double that ensured Freeland would not re-take the mound.

As mentioned, the bullpen didn’t fair much better with Scott Oberg being tagged for two more runs and Mike Dunn saddled with three. Only Antonio Senzatela managed to escape this game unscathed, pitching a scoreless inning with a walk and a strikeout.

But hey, if you’re gonna kick one away, you might as well give it a good punt.

The Rockies went 5-2 on the road trip and are now 9-5 for the season on the road. Arenado returns to the lineup when the Rockies return to Coors Field to face the Chicago Cubs on Friday.

Final Stats:

Kyle Freeland: 4 IP, 6 H, 5 ER, 2 BB, 2 K

Scott Oberg: 2 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 0 BB, 3 K

Antonio Senzatela: 1 IP, 1 BB, 1 K

Mike Dunn: 1 IP, 3 H, 3 ER, 1 BB, 2 K

Chris Iannetta: 1-for-5, HR

DJ LeMahieu: 2-for-4, BB