With a 2-0 start to the 2019 season and their first consecutive victory at Marlins Park in the same calendar year, the Colorado Rockies have a lot of positives to reflect upon.
Starting Pitching
Opening Day ace Kyle Freeland was perfect going into the fourth inning, retiring eleven straight batters – four on strikeouts – to start the game. He walked just one, gave up just two hits (one was an unlikely pinch-hit homer from the left-handed hitting JT Riddle, something Freeland hadn’t surrendered in some time) and struck out five.
While German Márquez also gave up just one run on a solo homer with just two hits against during his start, he was only able to go six innings and struggled to command the strike zone at times, walking three and even loading the bases in the sixth before getting out of his own jam. For not having his best stuff, he was good enough to keep the Colorado in the game and get the win.
Offense
Rockies have struggled to get going their first time through the order and have been held scoreless through the first three innings.
In both games, the Rockies were able to string together four runs during an inning; of the starters, only Ian Desmond did not contribute to either rallies.
Nolan Arenado, Trevor Story, David Dahl, and Ryan McMahon have hits in the both games with Arenado extending a hitting streak to 13 games that began at the end of last season on September 23.
McMahon rolled over his hot hitting into the regular season and was patient enough to draw two walks giving him a .500 on-base percentage during his ten plate appearances.
Charlie Blackmon went the opposite way to beat the shift in his first at-bat on Friday night and for a double to drive in his first run of the season later in the seventh.
After an offseason discussing the value of strong defense from the catching spot, Rockies backstops have each come through with a multi-hit game that included an RBI.
Bullpen
Scott Oberg and Seunghwan Oh got away with two bad pitches that lead to solo home runs on Opening Day, but looked good otherwise.
In game two, the relief corps needed to do an extra inning of work and came away without a base runner getting aboard, striking out two in three innings.
DJ Johnson came on for a quick inning, then stuck around to get another batter in the eighth before Mike Dunn continued his impressive run to start 2019. Bryan Shaw did his thing in the 9th and recorded one strikeout in the process.
Defense
Desmond looked great on his first opportunity on a grab of Garrett Cooper’s bat in the right center field gap. Not to be outdone, he went to the 408-ft mark to bring back a Lewis Brinson blast that should have tied the game at two in the bottom of the eighth.
Tony Wolters threw out two runners on the base paths – Rosell Herrera and Curtis Granderson – to help Márquez avoid more troublesome jams.
Daniel Murphy has looked adequate at first base despite jamming his fingers on a routine grounder and getting caught up on what should have been interference on batter-runner Garrett Cooper. Though short of Gold Glove caliber, his defense is not a question for Colorado.
