The Colorado Rockies knocked Giants starter Madison Bumgarner around a bit in the second and third, building a 4-0 lead. Bumgarner said oh never mind in the top of the fourth and drilled a 3-run shot over the left-center-field wall to draw San Francisco even in a turgid 223 minute affair they would go-on to win 9-8 Tuesday night to even the 3-game series at Coors Field at one apiece.
Ahead 1-0, Rockies starter Jhoulys Chacin doubled to deep left-center-field leading-off the bottom of the third, moved-up on a bunt-single by Dexter Fowler, and scored when Josh Rutledge grounded into a double-play. Carlos Gonzalez then doubled to right beyond the reach of Hunter Pence and scored on Wilin Rosario’s ground-single up the middle. Rosario followed him home, scoring all the way from 1st-base on a hit and run play when Jordan Pacheco lofted a single to right-center in front of Pence. Colorado would go-on to load the bases, but failed to score further in the inning.
Chacin navigated the first three unscathed on a walk and two singles, then, up 4-0, ran into flack in the fourth. Buster Posey singled leading-off for the Giants, moved-around to third on a single by Pence, and scored when Brandon Belt grounded into a force and was safe when Rutledge threw late on the double-play attempt. Gregor Blanco then popped-up to center-fielder Dexter Fowler, but the wind caught the fly and it dropped just-short of Fowler’s glove for a single. Brandon Crawford ripped Chacin’s third pitch to him down the 3rd-base line, but Chris Nelson snagged it and forced Belt at 3rd, yet then Bumgarner came to the plate and hammered a 2-1 fastball about 10 rows up into the pavilion seating.
San Francisco took the lead in the fifth against Carlos Torres, on in relief of Chacin, who threw 71 pitches (46 strikes). With runners on 1st and 2nd Belt drilled a low liner toward the left-field corner just out of the reach of Gonzalez for a 2-run double. They scored 2 more in the sixth on a single by pinch-hitter Aubrey Huff and Angel Pagan’s triple. Pagan scored on a sacrifice fly by former Rockie Marco Scutaro. Belt made it 9-5 with a solo home run in the seventh.
Colorado had added runs in the fifth on singles by Rosario, Nelson and Matt McBride, and in the eighth on base-hits from Charlie Blackmon, Fowler, and Gonzalez. Then in the bottom of the ninth McBride singled with 2-out and scored when Tyler Colvin pinch-hit a homer to right-field to bring the Rockies within one. But the Giants had another former Rockie at the ready, and Javier Lopez got Jason Giambi to pop-up to 3rd for the San Francisco victory.
Torres took the loss for Colorado, pitching the fifth and sixth. He was followed to the mound by three recent call-ups, Edgmer Escalona, Josh Outman and Rob Scahill, each handling a single inning. George Kontos got the win for the Giants, picking-up the final 2 outs of the fifth for Bumgarner. Kontos was the first of 7 relievers sent-out by Bruce Bochy, as San Francisco picked-up a game on the pursuing Los Angeles Dodgers, who lost to Arizona 1-0.
The rubber game of the series will take place Wednesday night at Coors Field, 6:40 MDT. Tim Lincecum will go for the Giants against Jeff Francis of the Rockies.
Did anyone hear Harold Reynolds say Tulo should be traded for pitching? He also said the Rockies pitching scheme will never work, & that he is excited about next year with our position players. Thoughts??
This is kind of trade would be interesting to think about since the Rockies are no where near contention right now, however I just do not see it happening unless the Rockies could get two established MLB starting pitchers as well as some other pieces.
Teams that have the money such as the Red Sox, Angels or Yankees would never give up two of their better starting pitchers, and the teams that might have the extra starting pitching such as the Rays really do not have the money to add Tulo’s salary to their payroll.
Established starters typically have little time left with team control or already make some serious cash that the Rockies would find difficult to add even while subtracting Tulo from the total salary.
When I was playing in the MSBL, we never had a pitcher (even a top tier type) pitch more than half a game. Granted that was intended to make the game more enjoyable by more players, but the idea is if you have pitching depth with some serious offensive weapons, the team will do fine. I see the Rox doing that. We won’t know the answer for at least a couple of years if the SP/Piggy rotation really works. That explains why the Rox are serious about doing it for the long run. You don’t do a grand experiment and abandon it without getting conclusive results.
The Rockies seriously fail to scout themselves at times.
I don’t understand how for the past few years the Rockies have undermined their infield growth by adding Mora, Lopez, Wigginton, Kouzmanoff, Ellis, Scutaro, etc instead of just playing their own young talent. Major misappropriation of money and valuable playing time.
Cuddyer, Hernandez (to a lesser degree), Giambi can be thrown in there as well. Money spent on things we just didn’t need.
Looking at this lineup, you can tell they miss the veteran power bad in Tulo and Cuddyer. But some of this is also Cargo having a horrible second half for his standards.
If Cargo could play like he is capable of playing this team could offensively make up for Tulo’s absence.
Could the fan base take the trade though?
I think it would be smart to go one more year with Cargo and Tulo and see if the young pitchers progress. But by mid season if the pitching still looks like its years away I would trade one or both for a huge haul and just say we are in complete rebuild mode.
We all have many ideas for what to do with the personnel from players to front office, however, what we may want and what we wish for doesn’t seem to affect anyone who actually makes those decisions, does it?:-(