Rockies lose third straight despite another quality start

The Colorado Rockies once again ran into some offensive troubles and some bad luck letting yet another fantastic performance from their starting pitcher go unrewarded.

It was a much better brand of baseball than we saw in Miami, with the team collecting seven base hits and the Cubs needing some spectacular defense and an assist from a member of the stadium staff, but Colorado is still a team searching for their rhythm after a 3-2 loss.

The Rockies have lost three in a row despite the fact that they have gotten quality starts in each of those games.

As has been the story since they hit the road, they got a good-to-great outing from their starting pitcher, this time Kyle Freeland making it two straight outings where he has pitched seven innings. The Cubs managed to scratch out three runs against him.

The first run came after a tough hop got away from Nolan Arenado at third and skipped into the stands, going down as a ground-rule double for Ben Zobrist with one out in the second inning. Addison Russell supplied the RBI single to shallow left.

Colorado took the lead in the fifth with a little scratching away of their own. A swinging bunt off the bat of Noel Cuevas was followed by a Pat Valaika walk. Both players moved up on a sac bunt from Freeland.

Charlie Blackmon put together a great at-bat, fighting off some tough pitches and blooping a single into center to score Valaika and tie the game.

The Cubs then caught a huge break when Arenado doubled down the left-field line. Freeland scored the go-ahead run but a ball boy down the line interfered with the play which granted Arenado second base but prevented Blackmon from scoring what would have been a monumentally important third run.

It came back to bite the Rockies right away as Chicago strung together a trio of soft singled in the bottom of the fifth to tie the game at two.

Kris Bryant led off the sixth with a triple off the wall in left. He scored on a groundout to second that Pat Valaika mishandled. And that was the ballgame.

The Rockies did get a pair of baserunners in the ninth and had Arenado at the plate with two outs but his struggles in the clutch continued as he struck out on a center cut slider.

Final Stats:

Kyle Freeland: 7 IP, 6 H, 3 ER, 1 BB, 5 K

Adam Ottavino: 1 IP, 0 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 2 K

Charlie Blackmon: 1-for-3, RBI

Nolan Arenado: 1-for-3, RBI

What’s Next:

The Rockies look to get back on track in Game 2 on Tuesday. Jon Gray attempts to build on his 11 strikeout performance last time out, facing off against Kyle Hendricks. First pitch at 6:05 Mountain Time.