Ugh. These last two games in Denver haven’t been fun.
First up was an 11-3 shellacking. Denver was firing on all cylinders, led by Troy Tulowitzki, who had a 3 run homer, and David Hale, who pitched seven innings and giving up three runs in a place where giving up three runs is almost the equivalent of pitching a shutout.
Our side wasn’t quite as effective.
John Lackey, in particular, had a bad day. He gave up ten runs with eight earned in just four innings.
With Carlos Martinez on fire, and Jaime Garcia being a pleasant suprise, I think it’s time to restructure the rotation. We should slide the veteran Lackey down to fifth, and move Carlos up to third and Garcia up to fourth. Lackey, while battle tested and grizzled, has the worst stuff of all five of the pitchers, and for most pitchers that’d mean that they’d be pitching in the last spot of the rotation.
As if getting pounded wasn’t enough, we lost Matt Holliday to a right quadriceps strain in the second inning. He’s been officially placed on the DL and no time table has been set for his return. So an ugly day overall.
We followed that with a 4-3 loss the next day. Not as ugly, but a loss is still a loss. Michael Wacha struck out ten in 6 2/3 innings but also gave up four runs, which isn’t bad for Coors Field, but his opponent, Jorge De La Rosa, was better, going seven innings and giving up two runs on three hits.
We had a chance in the eighth, after Peter Bourjos homered to cut the Rockies lead to one run. We loaded the bases with two outs for Yadier Molina, but he flied out to center. Yadi had a bad day with the bat overall, going 0 for 4.
Hopefully the Cards can salvage the series with a win today with Carlos Marinez on the mound. As I mentioned above, Carlos has been on fire lately, and I hope he keeps that up.
As always, thanks for reading.