Move over June swoon. It’s time for a July to make Colorado fans cry.
That’s assuming, of course, they have any tears left to give.
After Houston handed Colorado a third straight loss to begin the month Tuesday afternoon inside Minute Maid Park — a 4-1 defeat — the Rockies are back on track to submit the first 100-loss season in franchise history.
At 33-54, they now have a .379 win percentage after delivering a dud on the Fourth of July — a pace that would result in a 61-101 finish.
Left-hander Kyle Freeland, the staff ace by virtue of the raft of injuries that’s hit Colorado’s rotation, battled in his 18th start of the season.
The control issues that derailed his last outing, when Freeland gave up five walks and six runs in a 9-8 win over the Dodgers, weren’t as pronounced Tuesday. But his velocity was still lacking as he threw 56 of 91 pitches for strikes and finished with four runs, nine hits, two walks and three strikeouts in 6 1/3 innings.
With Colorado managing just two hits off Astros starter Brandon Bielak over seven innings, and advancing a runner to third base once through the first eight frames, the Rockies fell for the ninth straight time away from Coors Field.
“(Freeland) pitched well,” manager Bud Black told reporters after the loss. “Their staff just outpitched us today.”
Kris Bryant’s solo home run in the ninth, his sixth this season and first since returning from injury, allowed the Rockies to steer clear of the shutout. But they still dropped to 13-30 on the road.
“I understand it, but there’s nothing I can do about it,” Freeland said of the lack of run support after the loss. “I have one job and that’s to get outs and limit runs, so I can’t focus on what the offense is doing. … I’ve got my job to do.”
For the most part, Freeland (4-9) did his job, with Houston squaring up only a small handful of pitches.
The first came in the bottom of the third, when rookie Grae Kessinger drove a hanging breaking ball 397 feet to left field for his first career home run.
The other one that cost Freeland — an opposite-field triple from Mauricio Dubón that slipped past a diving Nolan Jones in right field — was sandwiched around softly hit singles from Jakes Meyers and Corey Julks in the fifth inning for a 3-0 Astros lead. Houston scored once more in the seventh, after Freeland was pulled with one on and one out, when Chas McCormick drove a Gavin Hollowell slider to left field to bring home Alex Bregman.
That was plenty of cushion against a punchless Rockies lineup that produced just two singles through eight innings and failed to take advantage of walks from Bielak in four of the first five frames.
The righty, who was recently recalled from Triple-A for the second time this season, got Ryan McMahon and Ezequiel Tovar to ground into double plays in the first and fifth, respectively. Catcher Yainer Diaz helped end a threat by throwing out Jones on a stolen base attempt in the second, and Jones stranded a pair of runners with a groundout to Dubón to end the fourth.
Bielak’s command (57 strikes on 96 pitches) was no better than Freeland’s, but he still finished with four strikeouts, two hits and four walks over seven scoreless innings after retiring the last eight batters he faced.
“Mac hit the ball on the nose in the first (inning) right at the shortstop (for the double play). That was unfortunate, but that happens. They were positioned where the ball was hit,” Black told reporters.
“… (Bielak) had a good curveball, the fastball had some cut to it, he was able to sink it, there was a changeup in there. I mean he pitched. He did. We just couldn’t solve him.”
