Jeff Francis pitched six innings of 3-hit shutout baseball Friday night and Wilin Rosario added some early eighth inning fireworks as the Colorado Rockies defeated the San Diego Padres 10-2 on a warm night at Coors Field. Francis became the first Rockies starter to log a win since the onset of the 4-man/75-pitch rotation and the first to earn the win since Colorado and Christian Friedrich shut-out Arizona on June 4.
The contest was tight for five innings as San Diego’s Jason Marquis held the Rockies close, allowing runs in the first and third before running afoul of three consecutive Colorado extra base hits in the sixth. Dexter Fowler led-off with a walk, moved to second on a Marco Scutaro sacrifice, and scored on a triple by Carlos Gonzalez. Cargo continued home to score on a throw into the stands by Padres second-baseman Logan Forsythe. Michael Cuddyer followed with a double, and he scored on Tyler Colvins’s triple. Colvin scored on Chris Nelson’s ground ball to San Diego shortstop Everth Cabrera. Cabrera attempted to short-hop the high-hopper’s second bounce to make a play on Nelson at first, but the hop eluded him and Nelson was safe. Cabrera took a tough error on the “do or die” bouncer.
Tyler Chatwood relieved Francis in the seventh and the Padres’ Carlos Quentin lifted his second pitch into the left-field seats for San Diego’s first run. Chatwood allowed a one-out single to Cameron Maybin, but completed the inning without incident. Colorado went in-order in the eighth, and Chatwood returned for a second inning, but immediately surrendered a double to Alexi Amarista, in at short for Cabrera on a double-switch. Pinch-hitter Will Venable singled Amarista home, then Chatwood walked Forsythe and was removed in favor of left-hander Rex Brothers. Brothers retired all three he faced to forestall the threat.
The Rockies got the San Diego runs back in the bottom of the inning, as Cuddyer, battling out of a slump, homered to short left, driving-in Gonzalez, who had walked. Nelson singled two outs later, then rookie catcher Rosario delivered a moon-shot that touched-down just short of the left-field concourse, foreshadowing the pyrotechnic display to follow.
Matt Belisle handled the ninth, setting down Jesus Guzman, John Baker, and Amarista after a lead-off single by Maybin. The win was Colorado’s first back-to-back since the shut-out of Arizona an June 4.
The two teams face-off again tomorrow afternoon in a 5:15 start featuring the Rockies’ Friedrich (4-5, 5.86) against San Diego’s Edinson Volquez (4-7, 3.82 ) in a lefty-righty matchup. Fireworks will follow the game again Saturday, and the game will be part of regional coverage by FOX, televised locally on channel 31, with radio on KOA 850 am.
I know there has been quite a bit of criticism on this 4/7 man pitching rotation, but if done correctly this may work. I’ve always felt that to be successful, the Rox need to think outside the box. Take today’s promotion of Chatwood. Because of yesterday’s extra inning game and Outman only going 3 innings, they needed someone to come up from the minors to fill the gap for a couple of days. Up comes Chatwood. They’ll need a starter for Sunday, I’m sure Pomeranz will come up and Chatwood goes back down. I first thought they should have tried this back in the late 90′s. All it would take is a bit creative use of the 40 man roster.
As I said after Jeff’s last start-professional,taking a leadership role by example,type of start.Yes Virginia,it is possible to pitch well at Coors,if you know how to freakin’ pitch!!!! Now if Friedrich could follow Jeffs example we might be on to something.Some young guys besides Cargo have slowly been stepping it up-Nelson,Dex,Colvin,and have to say Scutaro has also started to show why many here liked his signing.He is still in my doghouse for all the bonehead plays,but his RBI’s and situational hitting have also showed his professionalism.WE SHOULD NOT TRADE HIM FOR NOTHING!!!
Cisco, Tango over at the insidethebook blog makes the best suggestion I’ve seen: use a reliever to start the game (preferably of the opposite hand of the “backup starter”). That way the reliever goes 1 or 2 innings, then the “backup starter” qualifies for the win even if he only goes 3 or 4 and leaves with the Rox in the lead. I agree that you could get a lot more mileage out of this plan if you fully committed to it. Imagine a righty (Ottavino?) starting against a lineup stacked with lefties, with Outman to follow in the 2nd. By limiting guys to one time (at most two or three times) through the order you get a major advantage — the same guy working in relief vs. starting will generally post an ERA about 0.8 runs lower. That’s a huge effect, and is a way to get by without having top line starters.
Chatwood, unfortunately, hasn’t shown me anything.
Gary, Scutaro has been a disappointment to me since he hasn’t been the “heady veteran” player I thought he was. But his hitting is coming back to what we expected, and his trade value should be pretty good come the end of July. And I do really like this lineup. I mean, in the abstract you wouldn’t pay Cuddyer 11 million bucks to be a below average first baseman, but on this club he fits well there, that allows Colvin to get a full shot, and it paves the way for Helton to move into the Giambi role in his final year next year. Not sure Todd likes that, but when it’s time to move on you gotta do it.
The awesome thing about moving Todd into the “Giambi role” is that he can actually play top notch defense so therefore, you can PH him in the 6th or 7th inning rather than wait for the eight or ninth.
Nelson, Pacheco, Colvin, Cuddyer, EYJ all play multiple positions so Todd can pretty much PH for anyone in the lineup and a double switch could cover the necessary positions without burning two players.
Todd lacks the pop that Giambi does, but if you got a speedy guy on first or second Todd can bring him home better than Giambi.
Hope Todd would accept that role with pride.
And you can play Todd a couple, say 2, days a week to spell one of the outfielders or Cuddyer (Cuddyer moving to left or right, Colvin and EYJ to center or left).
The Phillies traded Thome to the O’s. So there might be another AL team in need of a DH who might have interest in Giambi to fill that role. Unless someone tells me that Giambi has been instrumental in the offensive resurgence of some of our players, I think that we should trade him because his ABs need to go to younger players who might be in our plans for the future.
I hope that Scutaro’s trade value continues to improve, because I would also trade him. We need to see if Nelson can continue to play well, and I think that Ruttledge might be playing 2B for the Rockies by the end of 2013.