Rockies win season-best third straight game, first home series with 7-1 defeat of Brewers

05/04/2023

On the 2023 scale, the Rockies are red-hot.

Colorado pummeled Milwaukee on Wednesday night at Coors Field, 7-1, giving the Rockies a season-high three-game winning streak and their first home series win this season.

Kyle Freeland threw five shutout innings before giving way to an effective bullpen, while on offense, Alan Trejo’s bases-clearing double plus homers by Kris Bryant and Charlie Blackmon provided plenty of cushion for one of Colorado’s best pitching performances of the year.

The Rockies’ big inning came in the fourth. Elias Diaz, one of Colorado’s silver linings so far throughout a rough spring, put Colorado ahead with an RBI single off Eric Lauer.

Then with the bases loaded and two outs, Trejo sent Lauer’s first-pitch cutter out to the left-field wall, plating three runs to make it 4-0.

Meanwhile, Freeland struck out five Brewers on 69 pitches, and left the game after re-tweaking his neck during the fifth inning. Manager Bud Black and trainers came out to visit Freeland during the opening at-bat of that inning, when the southpaw indicated discomfort after a pitch. But he finished the frame.

Freeland said he initially tweaked his neck while lifting weights the day after his last start, but he doesn’t believe the injury will affect his next outing.

“I felt it warming up today, but it was something I could grind through,” Freeland said. “In the fifth inning, it sort of grabbed up on me after sitting in the dugout for the long inning with our offense… With where our rotation is right now and how we’re already stretched out so thin, we thought it was the right move to pull me and avoid any injury.”

Freeland’s strong performance was followed by a scoreless sixth by former longtime Brewer Brent Suter. In the seventh, Daniel Bard got two outs but then lost command. Black brought in Justin Lawrence, who got Colorado out of the inning.

“Bard’s getting closer (to his 2022 form) — the delivery, the mechanics, the confidence are all getting closer,” Black said.

Bryant hit his fourth homer of the year in the bottom off the seventh, a two-run, 448-foot blast off to left off left-hander Hoby Milne to extend Colorado’s lead to 6-0. Then Blackmon made it taco time in the eighth inning with his third dinger, a 463-foot solo homer to right off right-hander Jake Cousins.

Lawrence pitched a scoreless eighth before giving way to Dinelson Lamet, who had a rocky ninth. Lamet walked the bases loaded and recorded only one out before Black called on Jake Bird to finish the game. Bird gave up the shutout via a sacrifice fly by Tyrone Taylor.

Colorado improved to 11-20 with the victory, the second-worst record in the National League ahead of Nolan Arenado and the Cardinals (10-21).

Thursday’s Pitching Matchup

Brewers LHP Wade Miley (3-1, 1.86) at Rockies RHP Connor Seabold (5.27), 1:10 p.m. Thursday, Coors Field

TV: ATTRM

Radio: 850 AM/94.1 FM

The veteran Miley is off to a hot start in his first season back in Milwaukee (he also pitched for the Brewers in 2018). He’s only allowed two homers over his five outings, and his 1.86 ERA ranks third in the National League among qualified starters. In seven games (six starts) at Coors Field, Miley has a 5.79 ERA. Kris Bryant has nine hits in 20 at-bat against Miley, including two homers. Meanwhile, Seabold is making his seventh career start but first in a Rockies uniform. Manager Bud Black will be happy if Seabold can keep Colorado afloat with five solid innings.