Rockies 6, Nationals 0: It’s a Freeland country

The Rockies continued their conquest of the National League East this afternoon with a dominant showing in D.C. against the Washington Nationals. Rock solid pitching and early offensive fireworks kept the Colorado Rockies on top the whole way through with a 6-0 shutout victory.

The Land of the Free and the Home of the K

Kyle Freeland started today’s ballgame for the Rockies and delivered a great start in our nation’s capital. Freeland pitched six shutout innings despite allowing seven hits. He found himself in a bases loaded jam twice—once in the second and once in the sixth—but navigated his way out of them each time, including a double play in both situations. Freeland walked just one batter while striking out seven, including career strikeout number 500 against Alex Avila in the fifth inning. The Colorado Kid’s ERA drops to 4.50 thanks to his stellar work.

Bullpen-Moose Party

The Rockies bullpen continues to surprise late in the season, as they really seem to have found a working rhythm. All three relievers called upon by Bud Black kept the shutout going, with only one of them ceding a single hit. Yency Almonte gave up said hit, but had a much needed scoreless inning after struggling immensely this season. Robert Stephenson continued to be quietly effective late in the game for the Rockies, while Daniel Bard pitched a clean frame in a low-stakes ninth inning to put a cap on the ballgame.

Armed Forces

The Rockies’ offense continues to show improved life on the road as they roared ahead early and held the lead the entire game. The Rockies were an abysmal 2-for-12 with RISP, but it didn’t really matter much as they scored six runs on 11 hits. Garrett Hampson led off the game with a ball that just barely avoided going over the wall for a double, only for Brendan Rodgers to make up for it with a two run home run on the first pitch he saw. Rodgers has been one of the Rockies’ best road players, and continued that trend today by being on cycle watch before the fifth inning. Unfortunately, he fell just shy by being unable to earn the triple, but a 3-for-5, 2 run, 2 RBI game is nothing to cough at. Both Garrett Hampson and CJ Cron contributed with 2-for-4 ballgames (each with a walk), and Ryan McMahon showed great plate discipline on a 1-for-3 day with two walks. Rookie Ryan Vilade made his big league debut, and unfortunately found himself hitless, but made decent contact in each at-bat.

Coming up next

The Rockies will try and bust out the brooms tomorrow in the third and final game of the series. Jon Gray will start for the Rockies, coming off a solid outing against the Braves last week where he struck out seven through five innings. He’ll square off against Nationals righty Paolo Espino. First pitch is at 11:05 MDT.