Rockies never recover in 16-strikeout performance against Braves

Rockies fans didn’t need to watch past the first inning on Wednesday to find out how the second game of the series in Atlanta panned out.

Colorado went down 4-0 in that opening frame en route to a 5-2 loss. The Rockies struck out 16 times, and everyone in the lineup had at least one K as the Braves clinched the series to drop Colorado to 51-89.

“We have a number of guys who have a propensity to strike out,” Rockies manager Bud Black told reporters. “This is not something that we’re not aware of. It’s been something that’s been happening all year. We have a lot of young players who expand the zone. … It’s a challenge for our young guys, moving forward, to make that commitment to cut our strikeouts down as an offense.”

The Braves got on the board quickly, creating chaos with two outs in the first inning after rookie right-hander Bradley Blalock retired the first two batters. Marcell Ozuna doubled, then Matt Olson doubled him home.

And after a walk to Travis d’Arnaud, Jarred Kelenic delivered the gut punch with a three-run homer to right to make it 4-0.

“Ozuna got a hanging breaking ball with two strikes, Olson got a ball up,” Black said. “Then (Kelenic) battled, and that was a good at-bat. He hung in there and got a (splitter) down and in that he homered on.”

But the Rockies responded in the top of the next inning, spurred by Nolan Jones’ one-out walk. Sam Hilliard tripled off Charlie Morton to score Jones, then Charlie Blackmon’s two-out double to right brought Hilliard home to cut the deficit to 4-2.

Neither starter yielded any further damage after that, with both Blalock and Morton throwing five innings. Blalock worked around walks in the second, third, fourth and fifth, with two of those frames featuring free passes to the leadoff man. The Rockies, meanwhile, had traffic in Morton’s final three innings but couldn’t capitalize.

“Blalock hung in there,” Black said. “He bobbed and weaved through innings two through five, and he showed some grit.”

With the game turned over to the bullpens, Colorado’s was the first to crack. Jorge Soler’s RBI single off Jake Bird in the sixth pushed Atlanta’s lead to 5-2.

Old friend Pierce Johnson, a Faith Christian product who pitched for the Rockies before the club dealt him to the Braves at last year’s trade deadline, pitched a one-two-three seventh. Joe Jimenez replicated that feat in the eighth before Raisel Iglesias slammed the door in the ninth for his 30th save. Iglesias ran his MLB-best active scoreless streak to 23 1/3 innings.

The Braves improved to 61-3 when leading after the seventh inning. Meanwhile, the Rockies have accumulated 29 strikeouts in the first two games of the series. Colorado only had one hit in the final seven innings on Wednesday.

Criswell responds to angry Merrifield. A day after rookie right-hander Jeff Criswell beaned the Braves’ Whit Merrifield in the head with a 94 mph fastball in the seventh inning of Colorado’s loss in the series opener, Criswell expressed contrition for the errant pitch.

“I sent a message over and just again tried to apologize — reiterate that it was not intentional,” Criswell told MLB.com. “At least try to get that message over to him.”

Merrifield was not seriously injured by the pitch, but he was immediately removed from the game, and then afterwards ripped Criswell and other inexperienced pitchers who are gassing hitters inside, sometimes with perilous results.

“Where the game is at right now, it’s just ridiculous,” Merrifield told reporters on Tuesday. “… The way pitchers are throwing now, there’s no remorse or regard for throwing up and in. Guys are throwing hard as they can and they don’t care where the ball goes.”

As there’s been a widespread increase in velocity across the majors in recent years, with upper-90s and triple-digit fastballs no longer uncommon, the number of hit batters has correspondingly skyrocketed.

As a reference point, in 1980, there were 657 hit by pitches in MLB. In 2000, there were 1,573. And over the last three seasons, over 2,000 batters have been hit each year, including 2,112 in 2023. Entering Wednesday, 1,767 had been plunked in 2024.

Colorado added to that tally again on Wednesday when Seth Halvorsen hit Eli White with a 100 mph heater on the wrist in the eighth.

Thursday’s pitching matchup

Rockies LHP Austin Gomber (4-10, 4.69 ERA) at Braves RHP Reynaldo Lopez (8-4, 2.00)

5:20 p.m. Thursday, Truist Field

TV: Rockies.TV (streaming); Comcast/Xfinity (channel 1262); DirecTV (683); Spectrum (130, 445, 305, 435 or 445, depending on region).

Radio: 850 AM/94.1 FM

Gomber pitched solidly over six starts in August, with a 4.37 ERA and four quality starts. In his last outing, he held the Orioles to three runs over six innings. The longball has been a bugaboo lately, though, as last month the opposition homered against him in five of those starts. That included a pair of two-homer games, and a homer given up in each of his last three outings. If he can start keeping the ball in the yard on a more consistent basis, he’s capable of elevating his pitching to what he turned out in May (0.68 ERA in four starts). The Braves have taken him deep six times, including two homers by Travis d’Arnaud in three at-bats.

Lopez has been on a heater. The Dominican right-hander has allowed just three earned runs over his last 20 innings, with 25 strikeouts to six walks. Only Jake Cave has seen him for more than two at-bats, and the outfielder has a .385 average and two homers in 13 career at-bats.