Early on, you could tell that it was a Kyle Freeland kind of night.
The Rockies’ gritty left-hander took the mound in the first inning Saturday and struck out Austin Slater on three pitches. Then he got Kris Bryant to fly out to left on a first-pitch changeup. Freeland finished off the inning by striking out Buster Posey by using all four pitches in his arsenal.
With that statement made, the Rockies took care of business and beat San Francisco, 4-1, at Oracle Park to snap a four-game losing streak.
“I felt good,” said Freeland, who whittled his ERA to 4.40. “The pregame bullpen was good and I felt sharp in that. I tried to carry that over into the game. Thankfully, I did.
“Right from the get-go, I felt like I had everything working for me. (Elias) Diaz was calling a great game from behind the dish and we were on the same page for the majority of the game. From the get-go, it was ‘grab the ball and go.’ ”
The Giants outhit the Rockies 6-5, and the Rockies were 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position. But the Rockies combined timely hits, hustle and productive outs to get the job done.
A scary shoulder injury in spring training set Freeland back. When he returned on May 25, the rust was apparent. He was 0-2 with a 9.58 ERA through his first five starts of the season.
But Freeland is now performing like the pitcher from 2018 who posted a 2.85 ERA and finished fourth in the voting for the National League Cy Young Award. In other words, he’s been brilliant.
“He’s pitching great, but it’s a different repertoire,” manager Bud Black said. “That speaks volumes to his development and his adjustment as a major league pitcher as he’s gone through these last couple of years.
“There’s the old saying, ‘This is a game of adjustments.’ We’ve all hear that, and I think Kyle has lived it. Four pitches, any time, any count, any part of the game. Good for him.”
Freeland agreed that right now he’s matching his 2018 performance but added: “At the same time, I have grown from that spot. I know a lot more and have learned a lot more.”
Mostly, Freeland learned lessons from his disappointing 2019 season.
“Like the saying goes, ‘You learn from your failures.” And you have to continue to learn from your failures.”
In six innings, he allowed one run on five hits — all singles. He struck out six, walked two and induced two groundball double plays — one in the fifth and one in the sixth. Over his last 10 starts, the Denver-born lefty has a 2.41 ERA, with 51 strikeouts and 11 walks.
San Francisco’s lone run off Freeland came in the second. Longoria led off with a high, wind-blown pop-up that drifted back into fair territory and fell behind first baseman C.J. Cron for a single. A walk by Wilmer Flores and an RBI single by Donovan Solano gave the Giants their run.
Colorado’s offense finally busted its road hex in the sixth. Brendan Rodgers led off with a single off of reliever Dominic Leone, extending his career-high hitting streak to 16 games. Trevor Story ripped a double to right and Charlie Blackmon drew a walk to load the bases.
Cron, who hit his 19th homer of the season with a solo shot to right-center to lead off the second, hit a chopper to Brandon Crawford to score Rodgers. Cron’s grounder had the look of a double play, but Cron, not the swiftest of runners, hustled up the line to beat the throw.
Informed that it was his fastest sprint to first base since 2019, Cron laughed and said: “If you want to call it speed I’ll let you. I was just trying to get down the line. I think the way the pitch was, I was already leaning out that way anyway, so I think I got the momentum that I don’t usually have.”
After Cron’s sprint, Ryan McMahon grounded to Solano at second for another possible double play. But Solano booted the ball and Story scored to put the Rockies ahead 3-1.
Story hit another double in the eighth and scored on another groundout by McMahon to stretch Colorado’s lead to 4-1.
Cron’s second-inning homer was an opposite-field blast to right an extra-windy night at Oracle Park. Very few right-handed hitters have the power to hit a homer to that part of the park.
“At this park, you never truly know if you get one,” Cron said. “But it felt pretty good and I hit it low enough that I took some of the wind out of it. It was nice to get on the board early.”
The Rockies, 1-4 on their six-game road trip, will try to split the four-game series with the Giants on Sunday afternoon.
