Once upon a time, legendary football coach John McKay was asked what he thought about the execution of the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ struggling offense.
“I’m in favor of it,” he quipped.
Not that Rockies manager Clint Hurdle is frustrated enough with his team’s lagging offense for desperate gallows humor. But Tuesday night’s 1-0 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers is the kind of loss that haunts.
When Todd Helton led off the bottom of the ninth with a triple to right-center, it looked like a night’s worth of offensive frustration would be forgotten.
Only Helton never came home.
With a chance to play the star, three Rockies – Yorvit Torrealba, Luis Gonzalez and Cory Sullivan – struck out against Milwaukee reliever Francisco Cordero. Sullivan’s strikeout came with two outs and the bases loaded.
“The biggest thing in those situations is that you have to get back and get a good read and you can’t chase out of the zone,” Hurdle said. “But if you look at some of the balls we swung at, they were out of the zone. You can attribute that to youth, or you can attribute that to guys being in a hurry and trying to do too much.”
And attribute a lot of it to Cordero.
“He throws a tough slider – it’s hard to pick up,” Gonzalez said.
Added Sullivan: “The key was taking the first pitch. I was thinking to myself, ‘Make him throw a strike, because the tying run is forced in on a walk.’ Unfortunately, that first pitch was the best pitch I got to see.”
Cordero said that after Helton’s triple, he knew he had to work for strikeouts because any contact could have meant giving up the tying run.
“I used every one of my pitches,” he said. “But I struck all of them out with my slider.
The Rockies’ loss, coupled with the San Diego Padres’ 1-0 loss, left the Rockies four games behind in the National League West. And as the Rockies cling to their playoff hopes, their starting pitching continues to thrill – Josh Fogg threw 6 2/3 solid innings – but their offense remains undependable.
Colorado managed just five hits off crafty Milwaukee starter David Bush, who mixed in a slow curve to keep the Rockies off-balance. They had just seven hits, including three singles from Garrett Atkins, who raised his average to .318.
For six innings, Tuesday’s game was a World Cup soccer match: nil-nil. But in the seventh, the Brewers got to Fogg, who left a pitch up over the plate that Geoff Jenkins crushed for a double. Jenkins scored on a single by Damian Miller.
It was just the third 1-0 game in Coors Field history, but it was the 11th shutout at the ballpark this season, the most of any park in the majors.
Fogg allowed just seven hits.
“I was commanding the ball well and throwing a changeup to both sides of the plate, keeping guys off-balance a little bit,” Fogg said. “But I’d rather pitch poorly and win, than pitch well and lose.”
Staff writer Patrick Saunders can be reached at 303-820-5459 or psaunders@denverpost.com.
All’s quiet at home
The Rockies were shut out Tuesday night for the ninth time this season, including a club-record fifth time at home. The previous mark was four shutout losses at home in 1997.
A look at this season’s scoreless losses at Coors Field:
Date Opponent Score
April 16 Philadelphia 1-0
June 3 Florida 13-0
June 9 L.A. Dodgers 3-0
July 25 St. Louis 1-0
Aug. 1 Milwaukee 1-0
