It’s almost never this simple, but on Saturday night at Coors Field, the Colorado Rockies lost the baseball game almost entirely because of an off-night from starting pitcher Kyle Freeland.
The offense didn’t exactly storm back to make it interesting, the way they did behind Tyler Anderson in the first game of the series, but a 7-0 lead after the first three innings was simply too much for them to overcome, dropping their first series since they played in San Francisco two weeks ago.
Freeland worked a clean first but lost the handle on his command with two outs in the second, surrendering a single to Wilmer Flores and a long home run over the wall in center to Nick Ahmed.
He threw a decent high fastball in the next at-bat to Carson Kelly but Kelly went up the ladder and managed to meet the pitch, driving it over the centerfield wall as well to make it 3-0.
Arizona kept it going in the third, getting a walk from Ketel Marte and a single from Eduardo Escobar that set the stage for another big shot, this one from David Peralta who crushed a mistake fastball in the middle of the zone for a three-run jack to put Arizona ahead 6-0. They added another on back-to-back doubles by Christian Walker and Wilmer Flores.
Those seven runs matched a career worst for Freeland and the three home runs set a new record for the most he has allowed in a single game.
The Rockies meanwhile didn’t have a hit until the fifth when Charlie Blackmon and Trevor Story hit back-to-back doubles, scoring their first, and turned out only, run of the game.
Arizona went ahead and made Freeland’s night officially his worst at the MLB level, grabbing a double from Ahmed, a single from Kelly, and a sac fly from pitcher Luke Weaver to go up 8-1.
Colorado got one back in the eighth, a token run really, on a single from Tony Wolters and a double for Blackmon.
But the Diamondbacks even managed to answer that with another run in the ninth against reliever DJ Johnson to make the final score 9-2.
What’s Next
The Rockies try to salvage a game in the set on Sunday afternoon. They will send their ace German Marquez to the hill to face off against Zack Greinke. First pitch at 1:10 Mountain Time.
