Millwood stumbles, Rockies held to one hit in fifth straight loss
Kevin Millwood finally faltered and the Colorado Rockies were held to one hit in an 8-2 loss to the San Diego Padres. It was the Rockies fifth straight loss on a dismal final homestand and assured them of a losing record at Coors Field this season.
The Rockies are 38-41 at Coors Field with two home games remaining. They will have just their fourth losing record in 17 years at Coors Field.
The five-game losing streak at home is the longest since the Rockies dropped five straight games at Coors Field from May 13-27, 2009. The five-game losing streak also ties the season-high; the Rockies also lost five straight from July 3-7.
Left-hander Cory Luebke gave up one hit in seven innings, a two-run homer to Mark Ellis with two out in the sixth. The homer scored Eric Young Jr., who walked. After the walk, Luebke preserved his no-hitter when he slid to get Dexter Fowler‘s grounder near the mound and threw him out at first. Ellis’ homer came on the Rockies only at-bat with a runner in scoring position.
Millwood had not allowed more than four runs in any of his seven previous starts with the Rockies but gave up seven runs, six earned, in 3 1/3 innings. He walked leadoff hitter Jeremy Hermida in the fourth and Aaron Cunningham followed with his second homer of the season. Luebke singled with one out, and Cameron Maybin followed with his ninth homer, ending Millwood’s 63-pitch workday.
Millwood gave up a run on three straight singles to start the second and gave up two runs in the third. The first scored on Jason Bartlett’s one-out single. The second was unearned due to catcher Wilin Rosario‘s passed ball that preceded Kyle Blanks’ two-out, run-scoring single.
Highlights:
_ The Rockies have been held to one hit at home three times and have been no-hit there once. The other one-hitters were thrown by Pat Rapp of Florida on Sept. 17, 1995, when Dante Bichette singled in the fourth in the Marlins 17-0 romp and by Houston’s Roy Oswalt on Sept. 6, 2008, when the Astros won 2-0 and Brad Hawpe singled in the fifth. The no-hitter was thrown by Hideo Nomo of the Dodgers on Sept. 17, 1996, when the Dodgers won 9-0.
_ The Rockies have been outscored 43-18 on this homestand, which began with the Rockies getting swept in a four-game series by the San Francisco Giants.
_The Rockies other losing records at Coors Field _ 39-42 in 1999, 38-43 in 2004 and 40-41 in 2005.
_The Rockies struck out 12 times, nine against Luebke, who walked three and threw 119 pitches, 68 strikes. Jason Giambi struck out three times, and Tommy Field and Ty Wigginton each struck out twice.
_Edgmer Escalona pitched two perfect innings and struck out two. Since he was reinstated from the disabled list Sept. 9, Escalona has pitched five scoreless innings, allowing three hits and one walk with three strikeouts.
_ Jim Miller made his third appearance with the Rockies and was scored upon for the first time. He gave up a one-out triple to Maybin in the sixth and Bartlett’s sacrifice fly. Miller pitched a career-high 2 2/3 innings. He had twice pitched 1 1/3 innings with the Orioles in September 2008, when he made eight appearances in his only time in the big leagues before this month.
Wow. Just wow! Nice work by Ellis, who I have been less than excited about. And I do have to say that EYJr has been one of the few guys I still see busting his rump.
Come quickly season end, come quickly!
And the beat goes on, the beat goes on
Drums keep pounding a rhythm to the brain
La de da de de, la de da de da
Jack, do you know if they keep stats for hitting by opposing starting pitchers? Since they keep everything else, I assume they must have this one as well…and it certainly seems like opposition hurlers do significant damage at the plate against the Rockies. Just lately Vogelsong, Surkamp and Luebke have had key hits vs the locals, what seems to me a season-long trend.
On a team with so many bigger problems, thsi isn’t all that important…but just another downer in a profoundly miserable season.
Fan appreciation week my ass.
So, in a terrible game, the bullpen was a bit of a bright spot. What I wonder is whether any of these late season additions (Escalona, Roenicke, Miller, Romero) are good enough to be an asset in our bullpen next year? If we are looking for players who might be tradeable and get us something back in return, there may be some in our bullpen, such as Betancourt, Street, or Lindstrom. Betancourt should have trade value, and Street and Lindstrom make me nervous every time that they pitch, but they can also be good, and some team might trade us a starting pitcher for one of them (we may need to add another player to the package). Brothers will certainly occupy one late inning slot next year, so we need only one more late inning reliever, freeing up Betancourt or Street to be traded.
Keep Raffy. Trade Street if they can.
Well, at least now we know what the Rockies look like without Gonzalez, Tulowitzki and Helton in the lineup.
The toughest part about this season (aside from the expectations) is that losing record at home. The Rockies have had some bad, bad teams over the last 17 years, but they almost always play well in their house. There have been some injuries on the pitching staff, but that doesn’t explain how a team with this much talent can lose more than it wins at home.
Jon
Trade Betancourt too, I’m tired of watching his half innings last 30 minutes.
I admit I have not been able to watch these last games all the way through I flip the channel just to see how far we have fallen behind after the 1st 2nd or 3rd inning (depending on the game) get rid of Tracy as long as he is here we will have less than motivated players which makes sense since if you play well he will have you sitting on the bench “resting” and if for some reason he does not “like” you, you will also be sitting on the bench because of a right/left deal that never seems to matter in the long run. The Rocks have had terrible teams in the past however, this one takes the cake, I have always watched every game I could until the latter part of this year. Monfort brothers sell the team, new owner clean house and bring some pride back at least.
From my perspective trading is not necessarily the answer. Some time back I posted names I thought needed scrutiny. Look at names like Alves, Sylvester, Monfort, Montgomery, Wilson, Warren, and Egins.
I’m sorry I keep going back to the Rays but the fact is they are proving that a $41 team CAN be competetive. Do national talking heads, guys like Peter Gammons, think they have a shot being only 2 back of the wc? NO. Peter Gammons does seem to have a lot of respect for the Rays scouting and player development.
“The Rays may have the smallest payroll in the American League, but they are proof of the integrity of pure scouting and development.” – Mr. Gammons
Until the Rockies get player development on a different level we will continue to post about trading. The endless names in tweets by Troy will continue.
I understand pitching in Coors is not the same as pitching in the Trop or any sea level field.
I do believe in Mr. O’Dowd’s and the Monfort’s goal of trying to develop from within. It can be done.
The Rays have gone 753 games starting a pitcher under the age of 30.
Every one of the Rays’ 152 games this season has been started by someone out of their own organization.
I only watched a little, but I had it on when Jim Tracy and F,G,H were talking some B.S. about how different it is for the kids to play in the big leagues, because the stadium is bigger, or the lights are in a different place, or some such nonsense. The conclusion was that this September is invaluable to the kids to get that experience.
Did it occur to anyone in the organization that letting these kids get their a–es kicked every night 9-1 or 8-2 might not be such a positive experience? By next year all the Rockies AAA and AA players will be well acquainted with being humiliated and the fundamentals of hitting .000 with RISP. Way to go DOD and Mgr. Tracy.
While I thought that last year was really disappointing with what was it 14 losses in the last 15 games, ah that was just prelude compared to the absolute failure of this team for the entire 2011 season (April excepted).
Really have you ever seen a MLB team expected to win 90 games fall to losing 90 games in the same season so easily, and apparently with no changes or consequences. This is hard to believe, I am literally without words to explain this situation!
Come to think of it with 90 losses we are now officially back to the Toddler days with just a blink of the eye – that disppointment now seems to be followed up by utterly hopelessness.
It’s not so much that they are getting beaten. It’s how they are getting beaten and where. For the 2nd straight year the team has folded like a tent at the end of the season.
And I can’t buy that it’s because they are playing mostly minor leaguers. Take a look at yesterday’s box score of the Yankees and the Twins. Yes the Twins lost, but they played a very competitive game against a very good team and they played on the road. Look at who played for the Twins. Except for Cuddeyer, mostly guys nobody ever heard of.
The excuses that Tracy and F,G H (plus A & R from the DP) come up with continue as long as Tracy and his team are allowed to hang their heads and mope.
“Minor League play at Major League prices” probably won’t be adopted as their slogan, but it should be.
Good post Mike Raysfan. I think that scouting and player development have all contributed to this terrible season. Obviously, misses in the first round of the draft have hurt a lot (for example,Greg Reynolds versus Lincecum or Kershaw) But I think that the huge failure in instilling in players fundamental baseball skills has also been to blame. How many additional games would we have won this year by being able to run the bases and move players from base to base by playing small ball? How does an entire minor league system not teach someone as athletically gifted as EY to be able to play one position at least average? Why would you have to switch his position after he has been in the system for 5 or 6 years? How about playing Pacheco all seaon at catcher, to then conclude that he won’t be a major league catcher and suddently have him switch to 3B/1B, where he has three errors already? It seemed obvious to me, and I mentioned that on this site, that he would most likely have a future in the major leagues as a 3B/1B. I don’t think that we’re the smartest, most well run franchise, and that has really hurt the team. OK, end of this rant.
Julian, I also wonder what the Rockies organization is trying to do with Pacheco and EY2. It is very difficult for me to believe that they made it all the way through AAA in the Rockies organization at a single position, only to end up playing an entirely different position once they reached the MLB.
Not surprising at all to me that they often look lost defensively and out of position with EY2 in leftfield and Pacheco at third base. They didn’t play 350 minor league games gaining valuable experience at those positions.
Pacheco was a second baseman converted to catcher by the Rockies that now plays 1B/3B, both positions that he almost never played this season while at AAA Colorado Springs. Sorry I just don’t get the logic with the development path for either of these players.
Julian/Rich M: very good point. With Pacheco, they started working him at catcher at Tri-Cities in 2008. He catches all year in the Springs, then suddenly in mid-August they decide he’s not even backup catcher material and move him to the corner infield positions. With EY Jr., they stuck with him at 2B all through the minors only to decide — late last season — that he’s so incompetent at 2B that he can’t even play the position as a backup. Someone’s not paying attention here.
Then add the mystery of Chris Nelson, who (when not hurt) played exclusively at SS until he was called up last year. Then he went back down and — you guessed it — started out at SS again this year. I guess that whole “Tulo is our SS until 2022″ memo never made it to the minor league system bosses.
As for how the prospects are doing: you guys ripped me when I said it, but I imagine I’ve converted some people to my opinion that Wilin Rosario is Chris Iannetta without the walks. Pacheco is now a corner infielder with a catcher’s (or second baseman’s) bat. Alex White is, right now, more Jason Young (ouch) than Aaron Cook. And Pomeranz is looking great, just like Jeff Francis when we first saw him.
4. “I managed a team that was so bad we considered a 2-0 count a rally.” — Rich Donnelly
Rings true. (From the Grantland website)