While the Colorado Rockies were just down one run, the Washington Nationals took advantage of shoddy relief pitching and awful defense to pick up a series win.
Boy oh boy, Halloween isn't here yet for a few months, but the Colorado Rockies played like they were already asking if it was trick-or-treat time. It was frightful, too, in watching the Rockies' relief pitchers (outside of Brennan Bernardino) and players throw the baseball around like a hot potato.
The Washington Nationals were the recipients of all this collapsing that took place at Coors Field in Denver on Wednesday afternoon.
Rockies starting pitcher Gabriel Hughes was solid in his outing for Rockies manager Warren Schaeffer. Hughes, according to the Rockies' media department, went five innings. It was his third career start, and second at Coors Field.
Hughes had stellar outing
Hughes has recorded 18 total strikeouts through his first three MLB starts, tying him with Chase Dollander last season and Tyler Anderson in 2016 for that amount.
Hughes also joined Anderson in becoming the second pitcher in Colorado franchise history to allow three-or-less earned runs and 11 or more strikeouts in their first two starts at Coors Field. But Hughes was the hard-luck loser, falling to 0-2 this season.
Now, that's the good news.
What's a bit worse, though, was who followed Hughes to the mound. Bernardino worked a clean sixth inning, making it a career-long 19 games without giving up an earned run. The last time it happened for Bernardino was back on June 9. So, he was excellent.
Herget, Agnos were not good
Jimmy Herget and Zach Agnos, though, gave up multiple earned runs. Those relievers were not helped by Rockies players throwing the baseball around like a bad version of the Bad News Bears. In this case, the Bad News Rockies showed up in the latter innings.
In two-thirds of an inning, Herget gave up two hits, four runs (three earned), walked two, and gave up a home run. Agnos followed with 2.1 innings of relief, giving up seven hits, three runs (two earned), and struck out one.
Colorado left fielder Mickey Moniak committed an error after he overran a ball that was hit to him. Brent Sullivan and Cole Carrigg committed throwing errors. Will the Rockies look at their trade chips and make a move to help its pitching staff?
Nationals starter Cade Cavalli worked six innings of four-hit ball. Cavalli got the win, moving his overall record to 7-4. The Nationals' pitchers only gave up six hits to the Rockies' hitters.
McCarthy on-base streak extended
Jake McCarthy moved his on-base streak to 17 games with a double in the third inning. This is McCarthy's second-longest on-base streak of his career behind a 19-game one when he was with the Arizona Diamondbacks. McCarthy has had his name involved in trade talks as the MLB Trade Deadline approaches.
Final score: Nationals 8, Rockies 0.
Colorado has a day off on Thursday, which is a good idea after Wednesday's game. The Rockies go into a three-game series at American Family Field starting on Friday against the Milwaukee Brewers. Next Tuesday, the Rockies will head to Petco Park for a quick two-game series against the San Diego Padres.
Maybe the day off will give Rockies' players time to review what happened on Wednesday and avoid repeating those errors going forward.
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