DENVER – “This guy could be one of the best pitchers in the National League,” Colorado Rockies manager Bud Black said of Colorado Rockies starting pitcher Tyler Chatwood before his start Sunday. And he was.
“We’re focusing on the ball-strike ratio. Throwing strikes consistently, pounding the zone,” Black said before the start of Sunday afternoon’s win over the Arizona Diamondbacks by a score of 5-2.
Chatwood has been inconsistent this season. He threw a complete game shutout in San Francisco but otherwise has seemed to let one bad inning doom him each time out. Furthermore, going back to last season, Chatwood has really struggled at home so in this start he was looking to regain confidence on the season, regain confidence in Denver, and keep his team atop the standings in the NL West. He checked all three boxes.
Starting with an 11 pitch, 3 groundball first inning, Chatwood gave up just two hits on a grounder up the middle by Jake Lamb and a grounder off his own hand by former-Rockie Daniel Descalso. Though, Chatwood did walk three batters.
Mark Reynolds said after last night’s win that he could “wake up tomorrow and look like I’ve never played baseball in my life” as he was describing the “rollercoaster” of a baseball season. “I’ve been through it all,” he says.
Well, today was not the day he woke up on the downside of that ride as it turned out. The Rockies early-season MVP (despite the fact that the club went out and spent $70 million on his replacement this winter) put Colorado on top in the bottom of the second with his 11th home run of the season. That ties him with Eric Thames of the Milwaukee Brewers — who’s having a bit of an “I told you so” season himself — at second in the National League.
Reynolds went 2-for-3 to bring his batting average on the season to .324. The one AB where he didn’t record a hit, he still reached via error and scored a run.
“Baseball players get on streaks sometimes. Mine just happened to start the year,” he says. “While you’re swinging it good, you want to stay in that zone.”
Neither team would score again until an odd sequence of events unfolded in the bottom of the sixth. A two-out error by second baseman allowed Reynolds to reach base (when you’re hot, you’re hot) and then David Peralta twice misplayed a Trevor Story flyball that should have ended the frame.
Peralta fell down, got back up again, then lost the ball in the sun and still almost managed to initiate the throws to get Reynolds at the plate but the wily veteran made a spectacular slide to avoid the tag and score the Rockies second run of the game.
Arizona made the odd decision to remove starter Taijuan Walker from the game despite the fact that the previous events really had nothing to do with him. Pat Vailaika, who was given the start for Nolan Arenado today, greeted new pitcher J.J. Hoover with his first home run of the season to make it 4-0, Colorado.
The Rockies added a fifth run in the seventh inning on Charlie Blackmon’s eighth home run of the season. Despite being the team’s lead-off hitter, Blackmon still leads the Rockies in RBI at 27 which is tied for third-best in the National League.
Colorado’s center fielder has been on an absolute tear lately. Really, all season if you just forget the first few games. Over his last 119 plate appearances (all but the first five games) Blackmon is slashing .333/.364/.676 with eight home runs.
Chatwood took the mound to start the eighth but the aforementioned Descalso single off his hand chased him from the game. Adam Ottavino replaced Chatty and like his last time out, was a bit wild to start things, walking Chris Herrmann (who came into the game hitting .182) to put runners on first and second with nobody out.
Then Otto lost a long battle with Nick Ahmed who singled to right field to finally get Arizona on the board and the Diamondbacks were still threatening with first-and-third and still nobody out. But Ottavino settled himself down and induced a double play (scoring a second run) before giving way to Mike Dunn who got the final out.
Then, the skies opened up. Lightning touched the gray afternoon sky and warm rains blanketed the stadium in one felt like the flash of a moment.
After a delay of one hour and 22 minutes, the team’s took the field to conclude matters and did so in fairly quick order. Greg Holland came on and struck out a pair and induced a groundout to record his 13th consecutive save to begin 2017. He has the MLB lead in that category by three.
Colorado is now 20-12 and leads the NL West by 2.5 games. They’ve won seven series’, lost two, and split one. This was their third straight series win against a divisional opponent after beating these Diamondbacks in Arizona and the Padres in San Diego.
The Rockies welcome in the Chicago Cubs tomorrow night for a three-game set at Coors Field.
