Having tumbled perilously close to fourth place in a five-team division, the Rockies find themselves observing a late- season baseball tradition.
They’re going with the kids.
Trouble is, the wonders of youth come with strings attached. Case in point: Eric Young Jr., whose speed can win games and whose glove can lose them.
Young had a chance to catch a line drive off the bat of Washington’s Danny Espinosa in the eighth inning Sunday. Young didn’t do it and, moments later, Espinosa scored the winning run in the Nationals’ 3-2 victory.
“That’s a catchable ball, and we didn’t catch it,” Rockies manager Jim Tracy said.
Young broke back and got his glove high enough to make the catch, but it eluded him by inches. It’s a scene that has played out before as Young, who struggled at second base in his early years in the Rockies’ system, tries to make the switch to the outfield.
The bottom line? It’s a package deal. If you want Young’s game-changing speed in the lineup to put pressure on the opposition, you have to accept his defensive shortcomings.
“Sure you do,” Tracy said. “And you’ve got to keep working on it. It’s as simple as that. That’s part of the development. You can’t fault the effort. That’s why he’s out there. He’s done some very good things for us, both he and Dexter (Fowler), at the top of our lineup.
“They’ve created energy. They’ve created run-scoring opportunities for the guys below them in the lineup. We continue to work at it and continue to develop it and go from there.”
“It was a low line drive that just got out of my reach,” Young said. “It was right there, one of those things. Sometimes you get it, sometimes you don’t. That’s just how the game goes.”
Tracy and his coaches are trying to be patient with Young, knowing he needs to work on his fielding instincts. He constantly practices catching flyballs before games but remains a work in progress.
“I’m getting better at it,” he said. “You’ve just got to get used to playing certain positions . . . how the ball jumps off the bat. You can practice all you want, and you can go through things in batting practice. But there’s nothing like an actual ball being hit from a live hitter.”
Not that one fateful flyball was the Rockies’ only issue. They had the bases loaded with one out in the fourth, but Mark Ellis flied out and Aaron Cook grounded out. They had runners at first and third with two outs in the seventh, but Seth Smith popped up. And they had a runner on second with one out in the eighth but walked away empty-handed.
The Rockies were 2-for-11 with runners in scoring position, a stat that has haunted them all season as they’ve slid from first place in the National League West to one percentage point ahead of the fourth-place Dodgers. In the process, they’ve compiled one of the most incomprehensible stats of the season: They’ve lost 16 games in a row — no typo, just fact — on Sunday.
“It’s brutal,” said Matt Belisle, who took the loss. “I pride myself on being big in big situations, and there’s another one that didn’t work out. I don’t know what it is, but it’s brutal. It’s not getting it done, and that’s all that matters in this game.”
Jim Armstrong: 303-954-1269 or jmarmstrong@denverpost.com
Momentum stoppers
The Rockies have struggled this season in series finales:
16: Consecutive losses on Sunday
13-25: Record in series finales
7: Consecutive losses in series finales at Coors Field
6-13: Record in home series finales
Looking ahead
MONDAY: Rockies at Reds, 5:10 p.m., Root
The mystery of Jason Hammel. It’s his term, not the media’s. He’s a mystery, all right. Maybe going out on the road will help Hammel (6-11, 4.88 ERA), who has given up six runs in each of his last three starts at Coors Field. Hammel usually is steady against the Reds, having pitched at least seven innings in each of his three career starts vs. Cincinnati. Homer Bailey (6-5, 4.30), was included in the package the Reds were offering for Ubaldo Jimenez. Bailey, the seventh pick in the 2004 draft, never has lived up to the hype. He’s 0-2, 5.74 in three starts vs. the Rockies.
Jim Armstrong, The Denver Post
Upcoming pitching matchups
Tuesday: Rockies’ Esmil Rogers (5-1, 6.35 ERA) at Reds’ Dontrelle Willis (0-1, 3.41), 5:10 p.m., Root
Wednesday: Rockies’ TBD at Reds’ Mike Leake (9-7, 3.92), 5:10 p.m., Root
Thursday: Rockies’ Jhoulys Chacin (9-8, 3.45) at Reds’ Johnny Cueto (7-5, 2.06), 10:35 a.m.
Friday: Rockies’ Aaron Cook (2-6, 5.05) at Cardinals’ Chris Carpenter (7-8, 3.75), 6:15 p.m., Root
