The Colorado Rockies could not do enough offensively to overcome the St. Louis Cardinals in a low-scoring battle.
The Colorado Rockies opened their nine-game road trip with a 3-2 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium in St. Louis on Friday.
The loss is Colorado’s fourth in a row. What contributed to it?
The second and third innings
The first starter to take the mound in this series for the Rockies was right-hander Ryan Feltner, who has been having a less-than-mediocre season.
Feltner was able to get through the first inning of Friday’s game by only allowing a walk, but in the second inning, he gave up a single and a double before getting Nathan Church to pop out; the consequence was that it drove a run home for the Cardinals.
A subsequent sacrifice fly off the bat of Bryan Torres scored a second run for the Cardinals, and what was once a 1-0 lead for the Rockies turned into a one-run deficit. Feltner ended up committing a throwing error and a walk before finally getting out of the inning.
In the bottom of the third, he allowed St. Louis to strike again by giving up a solo home run to Ivan Herrera that made it a 3-1 game. Feltner was able to get through the fourth and fifth innings without incurring any additional damage, but after walking Masyn Winn in the sixth, his evening was over.
By the time he left the mound, Feltner had gone 5.1 innings and allowed four hits, three earned runs and three walks while striking out two batters. Before the series began, I detailed the dismal outlook for the Rockies regarding their starting pitchers for this series and discussed the importance of one of them stepping up if Colorado wanted a chance to take the three-game set.
Feltner’s outing was not a disaster, but it was not quality, either. The 29-year-old was assessed the losing decision, pushing him to 4-6 on the year. He also carries a 5.71 ERA.
Limited Offense
As bad a season as the Rockies have had, many of their offensive metrics are not reflective of it.
Currently, Colorado has a top-10 standing in batting average (fourth), on-base percentage (eighth), slugging percentage (fourth), OPS (fifth), hits (fourth) and RBIs (seventh). However, Friday’s loss did not see much production from its batting order.
After getting on the board first thanks to a small-ball approach in the top of the second inning via consecutive singles by TJ Rumfield and Willi Castro that was eventually topped off by a sacrifice groundout by Troy Johnston that scored Rumfield, the Rockies only had one more run left in them.
In the top of the fourth, Colorado’s offense responded to Herrera’s solo home run in the previous frame when Rumfield hit a leadoff single and Castro doubled. Rumfield was eventually brought home by another sacrifice groundout off the bat of Johnston.
After the fourth, the Rockies were only able to muster three more hits, which sealed their defeat. Now, they must try to bounce back when they face the Cardinals again on Saturday at 5:15 p.m. MT.
If Colorado wants to win this series, more of the responsibility is going to fall on its offense to carry it through, and it will need to be better over the weekend.
