Come October, when the Rockies look back at the season that was, they may call this afternoon’s game at Coors Field their sloppiest performance of 2010.
They didn’t hit enough to win, but that’s beside the point. The Rockies were billed, if not self-promoted, as a solid defensive team, a ballclub that wouldn’t always win, but wouldn’t beat itself.
The Rockies weren’t that team in a 5-0 loss to the Mets. They made a handful of plays befitting the team that got Clint Hurdle fired, not the one that won everything in sight under Jim Tracy.
Where to start? How about in the third inning, when Ian Stewart had the opposing pitcher, Mike Pelfrey, caught in a rundown between third base and home plate, but inexplicably held on to the ball. By the time he finally threw it to Miguel Olivo, Pelfrey had bumped into Olivo and the Rockies’ catcher couldn’t hold on to the ball.
An inning later, Angel Pagan hit a tailor-made double-play ball that could have gotten Jorge De La Rosa out of a jam. But Melvin Mora didn’t pivot and fire the ball on time to Jason Giambi, allowing a run to score. Sure enough, Pelfrey followed with a single to right field to make the score 4-0.
As things turned out, the Rockies weren’t done gift-wrapping runs. De La Rosa fired a wild pitch in the fifth that allowed Luis Castillo to score the game’s final run. De La Rosa’s line for six innings of work: eight hits allowed, four earned runs, five walks and two wild pitches.
This wasn’t the new and vastly improved version of De La Rosa, the pitcher who won 16 of his final 19 decisions in 2009 and one-hit the Padres in the 2010 home opener. On this day, he looked more like the frustrated, out-of-control De La Rosa who arrived at the Rockies’ doorstep after escaping the scrap heap in Kansas City.
De La Rosa walked Pelfrey to open the third, then walked Fernando Tatis to load the bases with no outs in the fourth. That brought pitching coach Bob Apodaca out of the dugout. As Apodaca walked to the mound, an obviously angry De La Rosa flipped the ball 10 feet in the air.
Not that the Rockies, even if they had brought their A defensive game, were going to win this one. Pelfrey stymied them on five hits, three of them infield singles, through seven innings.
With the loss, the Rockies dropped to 5-4 heading into a seven-game road trip beginning Friday night in Atlanta.
Beimel up
The Rockies today called up relief pitcher Joe Beimel. He will join the team and fly to Atlanta for the weekend series. The corresponding roster move is not yet known.
Jim Armstrong: 303-954-1269 or jmarmstrong@denverpost.com.
