Rockies shut out for second straight game, fall out of first place

Anyone knowing the location of the Colorado Rockies offense should immediately contact the proper authorities.

The club once synonymous with scoring runs has gone 18 consecutive innings without managing to cross home plate once.

Saturday night’s contest against the San Francisco Giants was always going to be an uphill battle with Madison Bumgarner – who once won a World Series almost single-handedly—but the Rockies had plenty of opportunities, going 0-for-10 with runners in scoring position in a 3-0 shutout loss.

Starter German Marquez wasn’t as sharp as we’ve seen him for the last few months, breaking his streak of double-digit strikeout games with a six-inning, three-run performance with four strikeouts and one walk.

The Giants got to him in the second. Brandon Crawford went the other way with a fastball up and out over the plate for a single to left field. Nick Hundley, who has been a thorn in the Rockies side ever since he left the club, followed that by pulling a double to left. Austin Slater came up with a productive out on a grounder to second, scoring the first run of the game.

Hunter Pence then delivered a bit of a dagger two-out bloop single into shallow center field, scoring another run. Although, in hindsight, that first run was all San Francisco really needed with the silent bats of the Rockies.

The bottom of the third started in frustrating fashion for Marquez when Bumgarner got him for a double over Charlie Blackmon’s head in center. Gregor Blanco followed with a mirror image of Crawford’s single that started the rally in the second. But Marquez nearly worked out of the jam, getting a soft lin out from Joe Panik and striking out Crawford with some high heat.

He even got a strikeout of Hundley that would have kept the Giants from scoring any further runs if not for a wild pitch thrown just before the K, giving Bumgarner an easy route to the third run of the game.

The top of the fourth was promising for Colorado. Trevor Story hit a leadoff single and advanced to second on a Matt Holliday walk. But Ian Desmond hit into a double play on the first pitch of his at-bat and Noel Cuevas grounded out to short to end the threat.

The top of the fifth saw back-to-back singles out of Marquez and Blackmon but again the double play ball, this time from DJ LeMahieu, killed the rally.

The Rockies bullpen allowed just one hit. Yency Almonte worked a clean seventh. Harrison Musgrave gave up a hit in two-thirds of an inning and 29-year-old rookie DJ Johnson finished off the night for Rockies’ pitching by striking out the only batter he faced.

Colorado fell to 81-67 and with a win for the Los Angeles Dodgers over the St. Louis Cardinals, have moved into second place in the NL West, 0.5 games back of LA. Though, that also means they moved a half-game ahead of the Cardinals for the second Wild Card spot.

What’s Next:

The Rockies will try to salvage a game in this series on Sunday afternoon. Antonio Senzatela will take on Dereck Rodriguez. First pitch at 2:05 Mountain Time.