Troy Tulowitzki was one of the few players at his locker when the media entered the Rockies clubhouse after their latest loss Wednesday. He was seated, facing the center of the room, holding a towel over his mouth and looking shocked and stricken.

Marcel Lachemann walked by, touched Tulowitzki on his shoulder for support, pinched his neck slightly for more support and left. Lachemann, a special assistant filling in as the bullpen coach while Jim Wright attends his daughter’s high school graduation, is a kind, caring sort, a veteran baseball man, not that years of experience were needed to recognize an agonizing player in this case.

Tulowitzki turned on his chair to face his locker, his head lowered. And there he sat for more than five minutes. When he got up, he went to the office of the clubhouse attendants and then to the players’ lounge, stopping briefly in both places before returning to his locker.

It had been a miserable day, a ball-it-up-in-a-wad-and-it-throw-it-away day for the Rockies shortstop. In their 8-6 loss to the Dodgers, Tulowitzki went 0-for-5 with three strikeouts. He grounded into a double play in the first after a leadoff single by Dexter Fowler. He popped out to end the third, leaving a runner at third base. He struck out looking to end the fifth, struck out looking to open the eighth and, worst of all, struck out swinging against closer Jonathan Broxton with the bases loaded in the ninth.

That was the second out of the inning. Tulowitzki battled the Dodgers’ burly closer for eight pitches, fouling off two 2-2 pitches before taking a half-hearted swing at a slider.

“I felt like I was onto his fastball,” Tulowitzki said. “I fouled it off a couple times. He made a good pitch; when a guy’s throwing 99 (mph), it’s tough to cover his slider as well. Obviously, it was a ball and a strikeout and a big situation.”

Todd Helton followed Tulowitzki with a bases-loaded walk, swinging at the third of Broxton’s five pitches, saying he was trying to hit the ball out of the ballpark but instead was “about three miles behind.” Brad Hawpe, out of the lineup a second straight day with a strained right groin, pinch hit and hit a slow grounder to shortstop, the game was over.

And then it wasn’t long before Tulowitzki was suffering along at his locker, with the free-falling Rockies 10 games below .500, 14 games behind the soaring Dodgers and 46 games into a season that is eating at him.

“It’s frustrating, especially when you’re not performing up to your standards,” Tulowitzki said. “I don’t feel like I’m helping the team. That’s tough to take. It’d be different if we were winning games, and I was struggling. It’d be my own little deal to try and figure out.”

Tulowitzki is hitting .227 with five homers and 15 RBI in 43 games. He’s tied for the team lead with 21 walks, improving markedly in that area, but has 34 strikeouts. His most telling numbers are a .318 on-base percentage, a .393 slugging percentage and, worst of all, three hits in 38 at-bats with runners in scoring position.

“He’s worked very hard,” manager Clint Hurdle said. “He’s tried hard not so much to re-position his hands but get his hands working and take his body out of loading up the swing. He worked on that through the Detroit series (last weekend). It’s game-transfer time for him. His BPs (batting practices) can’t be any better, any more crisp.”

Hurdle moved Tulowitzki into the second spot in the lineup May 6. Todd Helton, hitting third, was then eight games into what became an 11-game hitting streak, a surge Helton has sustained, meaning the batter ahead of him will get pitches to hit.

“The thing about Tulo, he’s so talented, he’s going to be fine,” Helton said. “He just has to relax and go play and not feel like he’s going to carry the team because he definitely has those type of abilities. I’m not worried at all. He’s saving us tons of runs by the way he goes out there and plays defense. As far as hitting, he’s going to be fine.”

When asked whether Tulowitzki might be trying to make too much happen, Hurdle indirectly answered, “Is he pressing? Is he trying to hard? I don’t know. He wants to win. He wants to go out there and do good things. All our guys are in that same mode right now, and unfortunately we’re not getting the things done when we need to.”

Tulowitzki has four hits in his past 29 at-bats. He just endured his first three-strikeout game of the season, which to him couldn’t have come at a worse time.

“I just feel I had some big at-bats today,” he said, “ and I didn’t come through _ 0 for 5 and three strikeouts. It’s tough. I think if I come through in some of those situations, we have a better chance to win a ballgame. It’s what I come to the field for is to try to help us win, and when you don’t get it done, it hurts.”

That had been painfully evident by the towel pressed to his mouth, Tulowitzki facing his locker with head lowered and Lachemann reaching out with a supportive hand.