San Francisco – The cruelty of baseball is fascinating. It’s not enough for a team to lose, as the Rockies did again Saturday night 4-1 to the San Francisco Giants, or a player to fail, a fate hung on shortstop Clint Barmes.
They must lose their way, be stripped of confidence, boil in frustration as a feel-good story strays from rainbows to empty pots of gold. Here was the situation as the Rockies awoke tied for last place in the National League West, owners of a season-long five-game losing streak.
In the tenth of the second it took Barmes’ sixth-inning line drive to hook foul, a road victory vaporized. His average dropped to a chilling .194.
“But that’s how the game is sometimes,” Barmes said.
The sheer evil came in the juxtaposition. Barmes, who struck out in his biggest at-bat, came up after a pair of two-out walks. Had the ball hugged the right-field line, the Rockies would have tied the score at 2-all. Helplessness, a constant companion on this trip because of ineffectiveness and injuries, would have fled the dugout.
“Who knows what happens if that ball is fair?” said catcher JD Closser, the team’s best player on Saturday during his season debut. “It’s a totally different ballgame.”
San Francisco illustrated as much an hour earlier against starter Josh Fogg. With two out in the fourth, Fogg walked Barry Bonds on five pitches. Three were close, but Bonds would not be baited, his best swing delivered on a cut-fastball he hooked 100 feet foul into McCovey Cove. He remained Super-Glued to 714 home runs, but he proved he could still limp around the bases.
After a free pass to Ray Durham, Giants third baseman Pedro Feliz smoked a triple down the left-field line. The epitaph was written given the Rockies’ lifeless offense.
“It was a poor effort on my part,” Fogg said. “We need a pitcher to go out and put up seven or eight scoreless to take the pressure off the guys.”
The Colorado lineup has spent the better of part of three weeks in a funk. Every day it seems a little worse, like a team slowly sinking in quicksand. The Rockies have lost 11 of their past 16 games, slipping from their perch atop the division into a time share for the cellar with San Diego Padres. During this time, they are hitting .216.
In arguably their worst five-game road stretch in franchise history, they have been outscored 34-4. Matt Holliday, the club’s only hot hitter, sat out Saturday with a bruised right thumb. He will take batting practice today in hopes of returning to his cleanup spot.
Second baseman Luis Gonzalez is expected to go on the disabled list, with outfielder Ryan Spilborghs taking his spot, though manager Clint Hurdle wouldn’t confirm a potential bench replacement.
“The same guys that were tearing it up earlier just aren’t meeting the challenge right now,” said Hurdle, emphasizing the importance of patience. “There’s really not a reshuffling of the deck (planned).”
The challenge is not letting the trip go into the tank. The West Coast has never been kind to the Rockies, but go 0-for-9 and everything that was accomplished over the first seven weeks becomes suspect.
“The guys in here wouldn’t stand for that. We know that’s unacceptable,” outfielder Cory Sullivan said. “We come in here every day expecting to win.”
Staff writer Troy E. Renck can be reached at 303-820-5457 or trenck@denverpost.com.
