ATLANTA — Already trending toward their worst month this season, an annual June Swoon delayed two months into the dog days of August, the Rockies on Friday flubbed through a 5-2 loss to the Braves that typified malaise.
Colorado right-hander Chad Bettis threw 76 pitches before he was pulled after five innings. Most of his pitches were adequate. Two of his fastballs floated to the plate on a slugger’s path for home runs.
Rockies hitters strung together as many as two hits in an inning just once, when a double and a single sent a run in. Only one batter in a lavender uniform finished with more than one hit.
A couple of sour pitches and a handful of hits and another loss. As the Rockies lost a 24th road game in their past 31 since June, the formula was hardly complex. Nothing about Colorado’s loss at SunTrust Park was exceptionally horrid or impressive. Just like their August.
“Those two right there, that was it,” Bettis said.
Only a vanilla National League wild-card race can prop up the Rockies. They traveled to Georgia 21 1/2 games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers in the West. But they still held a wild-card spot, the second of two and only a half-game behind the Arizona Diamondbacks. Colorado stood 3 1/2 games ahead of Milwaukee before the Brewers played a late game in L.A.
“We didn’t put any traffic on the bases. Itap hard to win that way,” right fielder Carlos Gonzalez said. “Itap hard to score a lot of runs when you only hit solo home runs. We have to do a better job.”
Boxscore:
Dog days, indeed. For five years without even a sniff of contention, the Rockies tanked in June, averaging an 11-18 record before essentially losing control for the remainder of the season. But they plowed into summer this season on a roll, finishing every calendar month with a winning record, including a 15-12 June.
That streak could end in August, as a hitting prowess and a bolstered bullpen, two powerhouse Rockies facets in April and May, have disappeared. They are 9-13 this month.
“We’re trying to put runs on the board. But we can’t be desperate,” Gonzalez said, suggesting perhaps his team is too eager for the long ball and too quick to overlook a simple single. “We have to play for each other, just like we have all year. Thatap how we win, we win together.”
In his last outing against the Rockies, on Aug. 14, Atlanta right-hander Julio Teheran nearly spoiled Bettis’ comeback from cancer, pitching seven scoreless innings before the Rockies teed off on the Braves’ bullpen. Colorado manager Bud Black said Teheran “has been a thorn in the Rockies’ side for a long time.”
Friday was Teheran’s second chance. He pitched 7 1/3 innings that confounded Colorado, with four strikeouts, no walks, just five hits and one string of frustration.
Mark Reynolds doubled in the second inning with one out but he was stranded. He homered in the seventh, but no other runners were on base. Trevor Story doubled to left field to lead off the third inning and Charlie Blackmon hit a single to center to drive him in. That and a DJ LeMahieu infield single toward third base was the sum total of Colorado’s offensive output against Teheran.
“He stayed out of the middle of the plate. He was really efficient with his pitches,” Blackmon, who was removed mid-at bat in the eighth inning with a left hamstring cramp, said of Teheran. Blackmon said he expects to play Saturday.
“We just have to get more hits, score more runs, get hits when there are guys on base,” Blackmon added. “All those offensive things we haven’t done lately.”
Bettis, wearing rainbow socks with Colorado’s alternate uniform, hit more hiccups. He had quality starts without a decision in his first two games this season, both seven-inning efforts, including a scoreless outing against Atlanta. On Friday, Atlanta hopped on him early.
He walked Freddie Freeman in the first then threw an up-and-out fastball to Matt Kemp that the left fielder belted over the center-field fence. Blackmon’s sprinting catch of a flyball from Ender Inciarte and Story’s leaping grab of Brandon Phillips’ liner toward shortstop at least limited the damage of Kemp’s homer.
Then Kurt Suzuki homered on Bettis’ first pitch of the second, another flat fastball that landed in the left-center seats. A run-scoring weak grounder from Inciarte and a soft single to left from Phillips helped score two more and the Braves had a 5-0 lead.
“Even if they were hunting fastballs, those need to be better executed,” Bettis said of his home run pitches. “Both those were left middle-middle. Whether they were ambushing me or not, if you execute a pitch, it usually goes in your favor. I’d like those back.”
As the Rockies lost a 12th game in their past 17, that sneaky feeling of a menacing swoon crawled up their spines again.
