Saturday, August 18, 2012

Rock Solid Recrap: Tyler Chatwood's Rough Start Too Much To Overcome

Marlins 6, Rockies 5 (boxscore)

What Went Wrong: Well, getting behind 6-0 in the first two innings is never a good recipe for success.

Also, they should probably consider pitching around Giancarlo Stanton when there's a base open (homered in his 6th straight at Coors Field - a three-run shot), or at the very least do something to back him off the plate. That won't happen, of course, because there's a real fear among Rockies pitchers about leaving one hanging middle in.

That might be a leftover nugget from the Bob Apodaca era, but I can't prove that to be true.

Tuning Point: Stanton's three-run homer capped a four-run 1st inning. That was a crusher. But so was the Jose Reyes two-out, two-run triple in the 2nd inning that made it 6-0. Despite their best efforts against Miami's bullpen, that's the hit Colorado couldn't overcome.

Tyler Chatwood's Line: 4 IP, 6 ER, 9 H, 1 BB, 3 K, 1 HR, 71 pitches (48 strikes)

Chatwood fooled no one in the first two innings. That's bound to happen at the big league level, especially when you're talking about a 22-year-old pitcher still finding his way. What I liked is that Chatwood continued throwing strikes despite the rough start and finished the outing strong with two scoreless innings. That's always good to see (and something I value greatly), but obviously we need to see a lot more improvement and more consistency from Chatwood going forward.

He still has plenty of time.

Rock Solid Recrap: Can't Win'em All... Don't We Know It

Marlins 6, Rockies 5 (boxscore)

All good things (winning streaks included) must come to an end eventually. That end came for the Rockies on Friday night, which means they'll fall short of equaling their season best five-game winning streak from May.

What Went Wrong: The Rockies made a couple errors tonight that didn't cost them, but overall played a decent game again. They just couldn't get off the deck again in the final innings after the Marlins rallied twice in the middle innings to retake the lead.

Turning Point(s): Basically, it came down to three big swings of the bat for Miami.
  1. The Jose Reyes three-run homer off Jeff Francis in the 5th.
  2. Giancarlo Stanton's titanic game-tying homer off Josh Roenicke in the 6th.
  3. John Buck's go-ahead RBI double later in the 6th. 
All three of those big hits came on the heels of the Rockies scoring a crooked number the inning before. 

Jeff Francis' Line: 5 IP, 4 ER, 5 H, 1 BB, 3 K, 1 HR, 71 pitches (42 strikes)

Francis did well to pitch around the 2nd inning errors and really settled in well with 1-2-3 3rd and 4th innings. He just couldn't navigate through the 5th before allowing the game-changing homer to Reyes. I'm sure that has nothing to do though with Francis being conditioned to throw 75-85 pitches now and as a result beginning to tire around 60-65 pitches instead of 95-100 pitches.

But I could be offbase there.