Total Eclipse Of The Rox: Colorado offense obstructed again

The Colorado Rockies are still in a fantastic position to make the 2017 postseason and even to secure home-field advantage in the Wild Card game but their disappearing offense cost them two games against the Milwaukee Brewers including the finale on Sunday afternoon, meaning they missed a golden opportunity to create some space and comfort for themselves moving forward.

For the second time in less than 24-hours, the Rockies got a good-to-great outing from their starting pitcher, this time Kyle Freeland, and just couldn’t get anything significant brewing on offense. Colorado went 0-for-11 with runners in scoring position on their way to a 8-4 loss. They’ve scored more than four runs only twice in their last 13 games.

It also didn’t help Colorado’s cause that they committed four errors in the game.

Mark Reynolds hit his 26th home run of the year, a solo shot in the eighth and Colorado finally sparked a bit of a rally in the ninth to pull the Rockies slightly closer, but it was far too little, far too late.

In the sixth, for the second time in three innings, the Rockies got the leadoff runner to second base in the with nobody out and failed to score him. Gerardo Parra singled and moved up on a wild pitch, then got to third on a Mark Reynolds ground out, but Trevor Story struck out and Jonathan Lucroy grounded out in a pinch-hit appearance making the Rockies 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position in the game.

Freeland recorded two outs in the sixth but appeared to run out of gas as he came up on the 100-pitch mark and issued a pair of walks before being removed from the game in Favor of Chris Rusin. Rusin has been incredible for the Rockies this season but did allow a pinch-hit single to Neil Walker to make it 3-1, Brewers. The run was charged to Freeland.

His final line: 5.2 IP, 4 H, 3 R, 2 ER, 5 BB, 7 K.

The walk total is much higher than Freeland or the Rockies would like but he did an excellent job of staying away from the barrel of the bat and also managed more strikeouts than is his custom. It was another in a long line of good-to-great starts from Colorado pitching that just couldn’t get any run support.

Rusin recorded the first two outs of the seventh but an overturned call at first base turned the final out into a two-out single and chased Rusin from the game. Tyler Chatwood came on in relief and surrendered the third home run in the last two days to Jesus Aguilar to balloon the Brewers lead out to 5-1.

Milwaukee took the lead in the fifth inning without the benefit of recording a hit. Orlando Arcia worked a walk and moved up on a sac bunt from pitcher Chase Anderson. Jonathan Villar reached on a fielding error from Freeland who dropping a funky bouncer back to the mound and just failing to get the runner at first. Domingo Santana then drew another walk, Freeland’s third in the contest, before Ryan Braun could deliver a sac fly to deep right center field that looked for a moment like it might blow the game wide open. Freeland got Travis Shaw to fly out softly to left, stranding runners at second and third, keeping the game a close one at 2-1.

Freeland pitched out of a jam in the fourth, getting back-to-back strikeouts against Manny Pina and Keon Broxton with runners at first and third. The Rockies had a golden opportunity to take the lead in the bottom of that frame after a leadoff double from Carlos Gonzalez just missed leaving the ballpark by a matter of inches. But Trevor Story popped up the sacrifice bunt attempt, Ryan Hanigan grounded out weakly to shortstop on a broken bat, and Freeland struck out swinging to strand CarGo at second.

The Brewers tied the game in the second on a solo home run from Jesus Aguilar, his second in as many at-bats after sinking the Rockies with his two-run shot against Holland in the top of the ninth on Saturday night.

Charlie Blackmon got the offense going with a bloop single to left, moving up on a great at-bat from LeMahieu that ended in a walk. A deep fly ball to left center field from Arenado moved both runners up and Mark Reynolds brought in the first run of the game with a sacrifice fly, again to left field.

Colorado fell to 68-56 but with the Arizona Diamondbacks taking a beating at the hands of the Minnesota Twins, the Rockies still hold a one-game lead for the top spot in the National League Wild Card.

After a day off on Monday, the Rockies are off to Kansas City to play the Royals in a three-game set. Jon Gray is scheduled to pitch the first game for Colorado.