The Colorado Rockies are like every other team in Major League Baseball; they try to balance hitting, fielding, and pitching to win games. The Rockies bullpen has struggled a bit in the last couple weeks to add to that balance, but this week there was a lot of the same.
The starting rotation has settled into Cal Quantrill as the default Ace in lieu of Kyle Freeland. For the year, Quantrill is progressing well after 73 innings pitched in 13 games resulting in a 5-4 record thus far. However, Quantrill’s attacks against St Louis Cardinals on June 6th and Los Angeles Dodgers on June 1st have not been his best work He has struggled to get passed five innings and has been serving up a very low strikeout rate with only one per game. On the other hand, his walks count was up this week. Overall Quantrill’s numbers may have cooled down a bit this week, but he is still leading his pitching crew with a 3.58 ERA.
Austin Gomber pushed through some minor injury this week after taking a rest rather than going on the injured list, and Bud Black seemed to error on the side of precaution by pulling Gomber after three innings earlier in the week. In three innings, Gomber managed to give up two homeruns and get two strikeouts. The other three starters have also been kind of floundering in the middle to mediocre performance this week with high pitch counts through low inning counts. Ryan Feltner and Ty Blach tied for the most hits given up in a single game this week, but Feltner still finished with the highest ERA at 5.77 due to that tragic showing against the Cincinnati Reds when he gave up eight runs.
The bullpen go-to pitcher this week was Matt Carasiti, and after pitching 4.2 of his 8.2 innings this week, he earned himself a designation for assignment. Carasiti was brought up to the Rockies bullpen on May 24th and failed to produce the middle-reliever results Black was looking for. With a 10.38 ERA and a 2.19 WHIP, Carasiti was shuffled off to make room for RHP Geoff Hartlieb.
Another recent addition to the bullpen that has been putting in a lot of work is Josh Rogers who was called up on May 27th following a series of extra innings games that burned up a lot of arms in the relief category of the Rockies bullpen. Rogers gave 3.2 innings of outs this week and managed to give up only two walks. However, Rogers recorded no strikeouts this week, but he is still recording a .650 strike percentage.
In total, the pitching this week does not have any clear dominant pitchers standing out. Victor Vodnik is still giving reliable performances in the middle reliever space. Peter Lambert, however, seems to have not recovered satisfactorily enough from his tendinitis because he was sent back to the Isotopes this week after 2.2 innings with one hit, three walks, and three strikeouts.
Freeland has begun a rehabilitation assignment with the ACL Rockies, which could mean his return to the starting rotation may be on par to happen this month. With the Rockies 17 games back at the start of the summer, any advantage the Rockies can put together on the mound is needed now to prevent a further decline.
