With one hung pitch in the opening inning, the Rockies’ margin for error on Wednesday vanished.
Guardians DH David Fry took Rockies southpaw Kyle Freeland deep for a two-run homer in the first, and Cleveland never looked back to beat the Rockies 5-0 and take the series, too, at Progressive Field.
After rallying to beat Cleveland with a four-run ninth on Monday, the Rockies got crushed 10-4 on Tuesday and then showed little life on Wednesday to finish their road trip 2-4. Colorado also won the series opener in Baltimore to begin last weekend, before losing the next two to drop that series.
Wednesday’s defeat dropped the Rockies to 28-80 on the year, pacing the Rockies to finish 42-120. After winning consecutive series at home to start the second half, a suboptimal road trip has the club continuing to flirt with the modern loss record of 121 set by the White Sox last year.
Freeland only lasted three innings because he was ill. The Rockies’ bullpen mostly held the fort for the bulk of the game, but the offense was nowhere to be found as the Rockies struck out 10 times and only mustered three hits.
“(Freeland) honestly gave us everything he had in the tank,” interim manager Warren Schaeffer told reporters. “Even sending him back out for the third was honestly pushing it.”
Jaden Hill yielded a sacrifice fly to Brayan Rocchio in the fourth to extend Cleveland’s lead to 3-0. After that, Juan Mejia turned in a strong long relief performance, with three shutout innings, no hits, no walks and four strikeouts.
With that, Mejia became the first Rockies reliever to pitch at least three innings and not allow a run, hit or walk since Chad Bettis did so in April 2019. It was a career-long outing for the right-handed rookie.
“That was unbelievable (by Mejia),” Schaeffer said. “That kept us right in the game. He was nasty, and he’s only gone two-plus innings once this year. He showed some real guts, and he was efficient with his pitches.”
Cleveland finally scored again off Victor Vodnik in the eighth. Kyle Manzardo, who homered twice on Tuesday, had an RBI single. Then the next batter, Carlos Santana, doubled to plate another run to push the score to 5-0.
Unlike in the series opener, there would be no ninth-inning magic. Cade Smith, who blew the game on Monday, set down the Rockies in order. It sealed the 11th shutout for the Colorado offense this year.
Rookie corner infielder Warming Bernabel had one of the Rockies’ three hits as he continues his hot start to his career after debuting in Baltimore last Saturday. He is hitting .389 with two homers, two doubles, three RBIs and a 1.254 OPS in five games.
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