Jeff Francis looked into the camera without expression, a handful of reporters waiting for his answers. For a fleeting moment this felt like last October, when an entire region grew to know his face and hang on his every pitch.
Instead, Thursday afternoon was a very real reminder of his inglorious place on the buffet platter for feasting hitters this season. Francis suffered a demoralizing loss, given the opponent and the circumstances.
“That’s what I said before (Thursday), that it would (be a fresh start),” said Francis of his return from a 34-game stint on the disabled list with shoulder soreness. “It didn’t go as well as I had hoped or as we had hoped.”
Barely surviving in the endlessly forgiving National League West, the Rockies can’t afford to drop games to the lowly Washington Nationals. If not an ace, the Rockies need Francis to be a force. Though healthy, he suffered through many of the same problems that have ruined this season, surrendering five runs on eight hits in 5 1/3 innings.
After four breezy innings, the left-hander’s fastball betrayed him. It began cutting, becoming the equivalent of a sloppy slider that Lastings Milledge crushed for a pair of home runs. The first in the fifth landed on the left-field concourse, rivaling Chris Iannetta’s and Matt Holliday’s for the longest blasts at Coors Field this season. Francis has allowed a team-high 19 home runs.
“He was flowing to the glove and making good pitches early, and his fastball command changed,” manager Clint Hurdle said. “You have to pitch more than four (good) innings. I think we just need to let this play its way through before we start to try to figure out what we are seeing.”
Francis’ curveball was sharper than before, but lacking velocity on his sinker and four-seamer — 84 to 89 mph — left him with no margin for error. The Rockies are 5-13 in his starts, compared with 22-12 last season.
“Everybody in here needs to do their job, including me,” said Francis, who will pitch again Tuesday against the Diamondbacks, a series that could lose all meaning with a poor showing this weekend.
Footnotes.
In likely his last appearance in a Rockies uniform, Kip Wells threw two scoreless innings in the first game. The Rockies will have to eat $1 million remaining on his contract if he is taken off the roster to make room for Livan Hernandez today. Wells is prepared to get cut. . . . Willy Taveras should break Eric Young’s single-season record of 53 stolen bases this weekend.
Troy E. Renck: 303-954-1301 or trenck@denverpost.com
