SAN FRANCISCO — Slow starters all season, the Rockies got out of the gate fast on Saturday afternoon at sun-splashed Oracle Park.
First inning: bang, solo home run by catcher Hunter Goodman, his 31st of the season. Second inning: bang, leadoff homer by Brenton Doyle, his 15th. The Rockies led 2-0 against Giants right-hander Justin Verlander.
But, as usual, the Rockies found a way to lose, or couldn’t figure out how to win. Take your pick.
The Giants had only four hits, but it was enough to win, 4-3, and send the Rockies to their 118th loss of the season.
The Rockies, per usual, rallied late. Jordan Beck led off the ninth with a home run off reliever Ryan Walker, cutting the lead to 4-3. Doyle followed with a double and Kyle Karros drew a walk. Warming Bernable struck out for the second out of the inning, but right-handed reliever Spencer Bivens plunked Ryan Ritter, loading the bases.
In the penultimate game of their painful season, the Rockies were on the cusp of one of their most satisfying wins of the season. But Ezequiel Tovar’s foul ball down the third baseline was caught against the netting by Matt Chapman.
It was a bitter end to a well-played game.
Kyle Freeland’s final start of the season for Colorado was solid. Toss out the second inning, and the Rockies’ veteran left-hander was exceptional.
Freeland issued a leadoff walk to Chapman, which is always an ill-advised way to start an inning. When Wilmer Flores sliced a single to right field, Freeland was asking for trouble. He got it when Casey Schmitt mashed a 1-0 fastball over the center-field wall for a three-run homer and a 3-2 lead.
Over six innings, Freeland allowed three runs on three hits with one walk and four strikeouts. He finished his season with a 5-16 record and a 4.98 ERA.
An RBI double by Rafael Devers off Rockies closer Victor Vodnik in the eighth inning turned out to be the game-winner. Doyle dove for the ball in center field but came up empty.
Falling behind 2-0 and losing their starter to a self-inflicted ejection eight pitches into the game, the Rockies never fully recovered Tuesday in a 7-4 loss to San Francisco — their 100th of the year. That makes Colorado the first franchise since the 2011-13 Houston Astros to lose 100 games in three consecutive seasons.
“Was tonight 100?” manager Warren Schaeffer said.
With dozens of dogs among an announced Coors Field attendance of 18,934, the Giants scored all seven runs via the long ball, none more dramatic than the first. After Freeland served up a towering two-run shot to Rafael Devers two batters into the game, the Rockies lefty interrupted Devers’ slow home run trot, aggressively urging him to hurry it up.
“Extremely disrespectful to show me up like that in the first inning after hitting a home run. Standing there, watching it, taking your sweet time getting down to first base,” Freeland said afterward, emphasizing that he would understand if the celebration occurred after a clutch home run in the late innings. “I’ve been in this league quite some time, and I know he has as well. I just find that extremely disrespectful, and I felt that I needed to let him know about that.”
Devers hadn’t even reached first base yet. His freshly flipped bat barely had any time to cool down on the grass before tempers heated up around it. The former Red Sox slugger shouted back at Freeland and veered away from the base path. Dugouts and bullpens emptied.
What followed probably wouldn’t qualify as a brawl according to the old-school definition of the word — but it did include a series of shoves, instigated by Giants first baseman Matt Chapman on Freeland. Then it was a mess of hands indistinguishable from one another. In the end, Freeland, Chapman and Giants shortstop Willy Adames (responsible for a second mini-skirmish) were thrown out.
“I was slightly surprised to be ejected,” Freeland said. “I understand that I was the one who instigated it, so that right there is grounds for ejection. I understand that. Slightly surprised, but also not, because I understand the rules.”
Devers was sent back to first base to belatedly finish his home run trot while Antonio Senzatela warmed up to replace Freeland, even though Freeland said afterward that Devers also shoved him.
“I don’t know why Chapman and Adames got ejected. I’m assuming it was because they came up and shoved me,” Freeland said. “Devers also shoved me. That’s the spot that I don’t understand why he wasn’t ejected.”
Schaeffer commended the umpires for how they handled the conflict, saying he expected Freeland to be ejected after the benches cleared. When asked if he thought Devers’ celebration was excessive, the Rockies manager said he didn’t see that part.
“Happens a lot in today’s game, but those things are subjective,” Schaeffer said. “A guy like (Freeland) has been pitching a long time. I think he felt disrespected, and he did what he did. At the end of the day, when your starter doesn’t get an out in the first inning and he’s out of the game, that hurts the ballclub. That hurts the ballclub. And he knows that.”
The Rockies stayed within arm’s reach all night but couldn’t overcome the initial blow from Devers. Senzatela almost made it through five scoreless innings, only for his gutsy long-relief appearance was thwarted with two outs and two strikes in the fifth by Casey Schmitt, who entered the game to replace the ejected Adames. He homered at the end of a long at-bat, giving San Francisco a 3-1 lead and causing Schaeffer to go back to his bullpen.
“I hurt the bullpen extremely bad tonight, doing that, getting ejected in the first inning, eight pitches in,” Freeland said. “But Senzy did a phenomenal job, eating innings for the bullpen to save them as much as possible. I have to tip my cap to him for doing that.”
Devers went hitless the rest of the night after the brawl forced him to fill Chapman’s spot at third base — the position where Devers was ironically the source of much drama in Boston earlier this year, resulting in him being traded to San Francisco. But even with Devers playing a somewhat anonymous last eight innings, Patrick Bailey and Wilmer Flores added insurance homers, enough to nullify a two-run bomb from Rockies catcher Hunter Goodman.
Umpire Dan Bellino told a pool reporter that the crew discussed whether or not Devers should’ve been denied his home run for abandoning the bases to confront Freeland. “It’s an interesting rule,” Bellino said. “It’s one of those you don’t see hardly ever. We discussed it but ultimately, because it was a dead-ball situation, we did not deem it to be abandoning or anything like that.” Bellino said he believes that Devers would’ve still been awarded the home run even if he had been ejected.
With 23 contests remaining, the Rockies still need three wins to pass the 2024 White Sox and avoid the all-time single-season losses record. They need nine wins to avoid the 115-loss club, which consists of six teams in the modern era.
But Freeland shut down the notion that Colorado’s frustrating season had anything to do with his reaction to Devers.
“It was the pure disrespect of a first-inning home run, standing there, watching it,” he said. “Felt like it took 15 seconds to get to first base.
“I don’t respect you doing that, coming into my ballpark and doing that to me.”
WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KTXL) – San Francisco Giants manager Bob Melvin talks about Sunday’s exhibition with the Triple-A River Cats, Sacramento as a baseball town, the uncertain future of Pablo Sandoval, the late additions of Blake Snell and Matt Chapman, facing his former A’s team to end the exhibition schedule before Opening Day in San Diego against his former Padres team and his friendship with Dusty Baker, who has rejoined the Giants organization.
