Strand By Me: Rockies can’t deliver when it matters, drop second straight to Arizona

The Colorado Rockies just can’t get a hit when it matters most and keep making mistakes at the most inopportune times. Both troubling trends continued in a 6-2 loss at the hand of the Arizona Diamondbacks, who have now won nine in a row and lead the Rockies in the National League Wild Card race by five-and-a-half games.

The Rockies have 19 hits in their last 14 games with runners in scoring position and are batting .176. They are 1-for-20 in the first two games against the Diamondbacks.

One Jon Gray mistake in the first gave Arizona half their runs and all they would need.

Gray was one pitch away from escaping the first inning without giving up a run. After consecutive singles from David Peralta and Ketel Marte put a pair of runners on, Gray got a line out and a weak groundout to third and then got ahead of Arizona slugger J.D. Martinez 1-2. But after Martinez fouled off a number of well-located sliders, Gray hung one just a little bit and watched it fly over the center field fence to put the Diamondbacks up 3-0.

After his one big mistake, Gray would allow just two more base hits. He struggled with home plate umpire Paul Emmel’s strike zone all night, getting eight pitches that Baseball Savant’s pitch tracker had as strikes, called balls. This plus a general lack of consistent command ballooned his pitch count and while he kept Arizona at bay for the rest of his outing, he was only able to complete five innings. He struck out six, walked three, and allowed three runs on five hits.

We wrote before the game that Rockies manager Bud Black would be open to an automated strike zone in MLBs future. The home plate umpire made himself a major factor in this one. According to Savant, the Rockies had 15 pitches that were inside the strike zone that were called balls: Eight against Gray, three for Chris Rusin, on against Jake McGee, two against Mike Dunn, and one against Tyler Chatwood. By the same measuring tool, Arizona pitching had five pitches inside the zone called balls. The harsher part was the grand total of zero pitches outside the zone the Rockies got called for strikes to six such occurences for the Diamondbacks.

The Rockies got on the board in the fourth thanks to a leadoff triple from DJ LeMahieu. Nolan Arenado followed with a walk and Mark Reynolds hit into a double play which might have killed a potential rally but at least brought in Colorado’s first tally of the game.

The sixth inning proved to be a frustrating one for Rockies reliever Chris Rusin. A one-out broken bat single by Daniel Descalso was followed by a walk to Chris Herrmann. Corbin then laid down the sac bunt and Nolan Arenado attempted to make a spectacular play, driving hard and preparing himself to spin and throw to third, maybe even getting an inning-ending double play. But he lost the ball on the transfer and was unable to make either out. Still, Rusin had a chance to escape the bases loaded jam on a comebacker but his throw home was just a little bit wide. The Rockies still got one out, but Jonathan Lucroy was unable to throw to first making it the second time in the inning Colorado narrowly missed an inning-ending double play.

Of course, in the next at-bat, a changeup skipped away from Lucroy and Arizona was able to get an unearned run to make it 4-1, Diamondbacks.

The Rockies got a run back in the bottom of the inning because of an error from Martinez that allowed LeMahieu, who had walked, to reach third and Arenado to get to second. Again, Colorado scored the run on a groundout off the bat of Reynolds. Ian Desmond was called out on strikes on a pitch outside the zone and Arenado was left standing at third.

It looked for a moment like the Rockies might mount a two-out rally in the seventh after singles from Lucroy and pinch-hitter Mike Tauchman, but Blackmon struck out to end the threat and make Colorado 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position.

The Diamondbacks tacked on a pair of runs against Tyler Chatwood in the top of the ninth, getting walks from Ketel Marte and Lamb before a single up the middle from Martinez and a wild pitch cost Colorado two more runs to make it 6-2, Arizona.

Colorado fell to 72-63 but with the Milwaukee Brewers losing, maintain a one-and-a-half game lead on the second NL Wild Card spot. It’s the first time since May 10 that they have been less than 10 games over .500.

They will try to salvage a game in the series on Sunday afternoon as German Marquez takes on Zach Godley.