I went to 8 Rockies games this year and saw Kyle Freeman pitch 4 games this season. The three previous games were 3 of 4 of Freeman’s worse games. This night he pitched well. The Rockies were down 1-0 after 5 innings and the run Freeman gave up was an unearned run.
The run Rockies was at a hard-hit ball to left center near the fence. It looked like either the left or center fielder could catch the ball. Since they were both there and interfered with each other, the batter made it to third on an error. He later scored.
In the sixth Freeman must have looked in the stands and saw me and my friend there. He gave up three straight doubles making the score 3-0. That was Freeman’s last inning, but he ended up with a game score of 55 which was a good effort at Coors. In fact, it was technically a quality start.
It was a great night to go to a game. In fact, it was fairly warm. I noticed our area had a lot of kids. It must have been a special event. All the kids had purple tops. They were very well behaved and made a lot of names. I do know the Rockies lowered prices at this game at the last moment. It was two teams with no chance on a Tuesday night. It worked as the attendance was 23,000 and I would say close to that amount were at the game.
The Giants decided to have a bullpen game. In the fourth inning the Giants third pitcher came into the game in the person of Sean Hjelle. Hjelle is a 25-year-old rookie who has come up periodically during the year and was a September call up. His ERA was over 9 runs a game, but he pitched only 12 innings. He pitched 4 innings in the game and looked well. His first mistake was giving up Homerun to C.J. Cron in the sixth, but Cron is the best hitter on the Rockies this season, so that isn’t bad. I will talk about that later.
The Giants added two runs in the top of the top of the seventh to stretch the lead to 5-1. After the seventh inning stretch a lot of the kids left, so it got a lot quieter. Hjelle pitched a scoreless seventh. Hjelle who is a starter in the minors came out in the 8th and gave up a leadoff single. The Giants manager decided Hjelle had enough and bought in Thomas Snapucki who had an ERA over 11.00. He struggled. With two on and one out he gave up a hard-hit ball to C.J. Cron. It hit the fence darn close to the yellow line marking the homerun. Both runners scored the second runner on a close play at the plate.
I remarked to my friend that both managers could file protests on the play. The ball might have been above the yellow line for a homerun and the play at the plate was very close. The Giants manager protested the play at the plate. The lady at the plate was upset that the homerun wasn’t reviewed. However, that was up to Bud Black. We saw a lot of the views and it looked like the runner touched the plate before the tag on most angles. It took awhile as the play was very close. Finally, the umpires call of safe was verified making the score 5-3.
Snapucki completed the inning by getting the next two batters. His ERA went from above 11.00 to exactually 11.00. I joked after the game to my friend who is a Giants fan that the won a game where a majority of the game was pitched by two among their worse pitchers.
In the top of the 9th the Giants scored an insurance run. That worked at well as Yunior Marte would have the chance for easy save. Unfortunately for him he had control troubles and let 2 of the first 4 batters on base. With the tying run at the plate Jarlin Garcia came in to get the one batter save for the Giants victory.
I looked at the Rockies lineup on Baseball Reference and C.J. Cron was the only starter to have an OPS plus of over 100, or above average. His OPS plus is 115, which is good, but it isn’t what you want leading your team and isn’t that great for a first baseman. For the reserves the only one with an OPS plus is Kris Bryant with 126. He played only 42 games because of back problems.
There have been some young talent that have come up and shown they can play with a little more experience. I think it is time to give them a chance even if they have to trade Cron. I think they are stuck with Bryant as he has a long contract and who would want a guy that gets hurt so much.
