Bad pitches. Bad luck. Both have helped deliver the beastly streak Rockies starters are enduring at Coors Field.
Thus far, not a single starter can win here for the losing. The streak is at six games now. The Padres made it so, a chilly 13-4 punching Wednesday. That makes Rockies starters 0-6 in a park where their team is 3-6.
There was the 1-0 loss to Philadelphia on Sunday. Starter Aaron Cook took that one. The worst home loss before this one was 12-5 to Arizona in the season-opening series. Starter Jeff Francis was thumped that time.
This fiasco belonged to Zach Day.
His pitches were all over the place. The Padres, in turn, were all over him.
Day lasted one out shy of four innings. Eleven hits, four walks and eight earned runs later, he vanished. Tom Martin in relief was smacked for three hits and three more runs.
Scott Dohmann was awful – three hits, two walks and two more runs.
The best pitch any of the three threw was Martin’s in-the-back fastball to Brian Giles. It was payback for Giles colliding with Rockies catcher Danny Ardoin the game before.
Rockies manager Clint Hurdle said his team will not be intimidated.
In turn, it would be nice to see some of his starting pitchers do the intimidating at Coors Field.
The pitching has flipped. Last season the starters were solid and the bullpen was rotten. Now, the bullpen is rising (3-0 at Coors Field) and the starters, on their own turf, are reeling.
Of course, Rockies starters are 5-0 on the road.
Home has not been where their groove is.
“Everyone wants to blame it on the starters, but we have not scored enough runs for them at home,” shortstop Clint Barmes said. “It is just not all their fault.”
No, but it is a terrific place to start. Hurdle knows. He believes, accurately, that momentum is tied to starting pitching. He said help is on the way. Starter Byung-Hyun Kim (hamstring) should be back next week. Hurdle thinks that addition will help his team “get some quality starts, get that on a roll.”
I know it is early for the Rockies and for rookie Ramon Ramirez. But I would keep all doors open for this young gun to find a way into the starting rotation.
We do not know if he can do it. But we do know he was the brightest, most intriguing contributor among all Rockies against the Padres on Wednesday.
Ramirez entered between Day and Martin. He was the only Rockies pitcher who found success. He pitched 2 1/3 innings. He allowed two hits, no walks, no runs and struck out four.
Now, there is a difference entering a game down 8-1. You can let it fly. Let it flow. Ramirez did that and more. He took his fastball and slider – his money-makers – and mixed them with a hard changeup that kept the Padres wobbly. He was aggressive. One of the better examples was an 0-2 fastball he powered by Giles. No flirting. Just right at ’em.
This was his third major- league game, all this season. He has faced 19 batters and allowed only three hits. He has eight strikeouts.
“I’m feeling great right now, throwing a lot of innings lately, getting a good feel,” Ramirez said in Spanish that was translated by teammate Luis Gonzalez. “I don’t see the hitters. I try to put the ball in the glove, in the right location. I don’t care who is hitting. Big hitter, little hitter, I treat the same.”
Maybe that is what the Rockies’ starters need to do. Start pitching more to purpose than to person.
Ramirez, 24, is glad he is pitching at all in the big leagues. He began as an outfielder in 1997 for Texas in the Dominican Summer League. But for the next four years he could not find a job. He returned to his home in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, and kept playing baseball. In 2002 a Japanese scout liked his arm and told him he was a pitcher. Ramirez played a year in Japan. In 2003, the Yankees grabbed him.
The Rockies got him in the Shawn Chacon trade last year.
The Rockies would love to see Ramirez begin to outshine Chacon. That trade remains an open wound for some in the organization. Ramirez could heal that – and more.
“I don’t make decisions,” Ramirez said. “I come every day to play ball.”
He might be on his way to coming to the park to play every fifth day. As a starter.
At the very least, Hurdle said, Ramirez is closer to “King, Mesa and Fuentes,” the Rockies’ top bullpen trio. That Ramirez has “moved to that side of the ledger” in terms of his value.
I would like to see him keep moving and end some of the starting-pitcher torture at Coors Field.
Staff writer Thomas George can be reached at 303-820-1994 or tgeorge@denverpost.com.
