Leave it to to put things in perspective. After the Rockies lost 7-6 to the Padres at Coors Field Monday night, CarGo offered the following:
“It’s been pretty bad, these first couple of games at home. Normally we play better than that. Yesterday (in a 4-0 loss to Atlanta) our offensive performance was poor, and today it was just the opposite. We understand we are better than that.”
That was the bottom line from a frustrating game that left the Rockies 5-6 overall and 1-3 at home in the young season.
Here are five other takeaways from the game:
No. 1: Starter Jon Gray’s roller-coaster ride continues. After a brilliant start at San Diego in his last game, the right-hander was gone after just five innings Monday. He allowed seven runs on a career-tying 10 hits. His seven earned runs were his most allowed since August 21, 2015 vs the Mets.
No. 2: continues to dominate opposing batters. The right-handed reliever struck out three of the Padres’ best hitters in a perfect ninth, fanning Chase Headley, Eric Hosmer and Jose Pirela. That prompted manager Bud Black to say: “The opposition doesn’t know what’s coming. It could be a fastball, it could be a breaking ball, it could be a little variance of the breaking ball, it could be a fastball with some movement.”
No. 3: Ian Desmond snapped an 0-for-16 hitless streak with a solo home run in the second inning. It was his third homer of the season and he leads the Rockies with eight RBI.
No. 4: entered the game batting .571 with runners in scoring position this season, but he struck out in the seventh with a chance to tie the game.
No. 5: Gonzalez’s two-run homer in the sixth inning almost wasn’t.
CarGo hit a deep, high fly to the left-field wall where Cory Spangenberg camped out, hoping to make a leaping catch. He almost did, but a fan reached out and became entangled in the play. The Padres called for fan interference, but the replay official “could not definitively be determined that spectator interference occurred.” It appeared that Spangenberg had the ball in his glove and that the impact of the wall dislodged the ball from his glove and carried the ball over the fence for the homer. Nonetheless, San Diego manager Andy Green earned an automatic ejection for arguing a replay decision with crew chief Brian Gorman, the second-base umpire.
Quotable: “We have to keep the focus from pitch one to the very last pitch. … You can’t vary from that, because big-league hitters will make you pay. These are growing pains from some of these guys and they have to learn to get through it. That could be the separator in some of these guys’ careers moving forward.” — Black on the continuing problems of Colorado’s young starting pitchers.
