With their season limping toward its sad conclusion, the Rockies have entered full-experimental mode.
Friday night at , led off, batted second, rookie Sam Hilliard started in right field and rookie Yonathan Daza started in center.
Different look, same bad pitching, same results.
Pittsburgh won 9-4, sending Colorado to its 10th loss in its last 12 games. The Pirates (58-77) have the second-worst record in the National League, but are threatening to bypass the Rockies (59-77).
Things started out fine for Colorado. Story launched a 447-foot home run to left for the first lead-off homer of his career, tying the game 1-1. It was Story’s 29th homer of the season and extended his home hitting streak to 15 games, the longest of his career.
But Colorado’s pitching, as has been the case so often this season, failed to deliver.
Starter Antonio Senzatela lasted five innings. That’s not saying much, and the Rockies were behind 6-1 when he departed the game. But at least he went deeper than most Rockies starters have gone lately. And at least he went deeper than the 1 ⅔ innings he pitched during his last outing at St. Louis.
“He got some groundballs tonight,” manager Bud Black said, noting Senzatela’s 10 groundball outs. “But they put the ball in play, found some holes, especially in the first inning. He’s throwing strikes and the ball-to-strike ratio was fine. He was keeping us in the game.”
Small consolation: Senzatela’s five innings gave Colorado’s threadbare bullpen a tiny bit of a break.
But Pittsburgh busted the game open in the fifth on Melky Cabrera’s 433-foot, three-run homer into the second deck above right field, increasing its lead to 6-1. Senzatela threw an 88 mph slider low-and-inside to Cabrera, who golfed it off his shoetops for his seventh homer.
“If you look at the (at-bat) before, it was the same pitch he grounded to me,” Senzatela said. “It was the same pitch and he hit it out. Good for him.”
Said Black: “The backbreaker was the three-run homer after the walk to (Josh) Bell. That looked to be a decent pitch, down and in, it might have been a ball, but that’s baseball. (Senzatela’s) stuff was pretty crisp, he threw more secondary pitches than the last time in St. Louis.”
Still, the Pirates rapped 10 hits off Senzatela and put men on base in every one of his innings. He struck out two, walked one and also committed a throwing error to first base in the third inning. Senzatela’s ERA after 20 starts is 6.95. He has allowed six or more runs in five consecutive starts, the longest such streak in a single season for a starter in Rockies history.
Colorado chipped away at Pittsburgh’s big lead. Story’s double and McMahon’s RBI single cut it to 6-2 in the fifth. In the sixth, ‘s leadoff double into the left-field corner, followed by Hilliard’s RBI single to center, made it 6-3.
Story (2-for-5) is now batting .300 with a month remaining in the season, a symbol of his continued maturation as a hitter. He finished last season batting .291.
“It’s a goal of mine, for sure,” he said. “I’ve said it so many times … I’ve stayed within my routine and my process and preparation. If I’m doing that every day, I feel good about my chances.
“I think experience is really the key thing for me. Learning how to attack guys — different types of guys. It’s all about little adjustments in this game.”
The Pirates ambushed reliever for two runs on five hits in the seventh to lock up the game; the key hits were an RBI single by Bell and a run-scoring single by Elias Diaz.
Desmond, breaking out of a monthlong slump, had a big night, finishing a triple short of the cycle. His 454-foot solo home run in the eighth was his 15th homer of the season.
