Blackmon calm amid Rockies' skid: 'Plenty of time for adjustments'

DENVER -- For Charlie Blackmon, the best part about the worst 18-game start in Rockies history is it’s only a start.

Most of the Rockies’ woes showed up in their seventh straight loss, a 5-3 decision to the Pirates at Coors Field on Tuesday night.

The Rockies dropped to 5-13, after having never won fewer than six of their first 18 in any of their 30 previous seasons. They’ve dropped all six series. But, as Blackmon notes, it’s only a start.

“Honestly, I think it’s easier, just knowing you have so much of the season left,” said Blackmon, who doubled twice, walked twice, and finished the night with a .300 batting average and .842 OPS. “There’s plenty of time to make the adjustments. There are always ups and downs in baseball. We mentioned that today in our group. Things aren’t going well, and that happens to every team at some point in the season, so that’s not anything I’m worried about.”

Much of what hasn’t been going well showed up in Tuesday’s loss. Homer-prone starter José Ureña went 4 2/3 innings and yielded two homers to Jack Suwinski. Ureña, who forced nine groundouts but also yielded the homers, two doubles and a triple, has given up seven homers in 14 2/3 innings over three starts and has a 9.82 ERA. He’s one of three starters with ERA's above 8.00.

But because relievers Brent Suter, Dinelson Lamet, Brad Hand and Pierce Johnson pitched 4 1/3 scoreless, the issues closer to Blackmon’s heart were the true reasons for the loss.

Kris Bryant homered for the second straight game -- a day after hitting his first Coors Field homer since signing with the Rockies before last season -- and Elias Díaz added a two-run double off Vince Velasquez in the first inning. But after the four-hit frame, the Rockies managed just one other hit in Velasquez’s six innings.

The Rockies left Díaz at second to end the first, and never delivered a hit with runners in scoring position in the fourth as well as the sixth through ninth innings. Blackmon doubled in the seventh, but it was after Bryant grounded into a double play and before C.J. Cron struck out against Duane Underwood Jr. Blackmon’s ninth-inning double, which according to Statcast would have been a homer in every park but Coors, preceded a Cron strikeout.

Add in Mike Moustakas’ deep fly to let with two on in the seventh, and it’s a story of a team that either scuffled in key situations on one hand and can’t buy a break on the other. During the losing streak, they’ve hit .158 and struck out 14 times in 58 at-bats with runners in scoring position.

“It's frustrating for the guys,” said manager Bud Black, whose response is to not compound the struggles by showing exasperation. “Part of it is the the effort level is a little bit too high, because of a little bit of a slump here, offensively. The guys want to be the guy, and expand the zone. It happens across baseball.”

It has happened enough to the Rockies to leave them with the National League’s worst record.

“We just couldn’t get over the hump,” Blackmon said. “That’s the hardest one to get, too. It’s certainly not easy to get that big hit with runners in scoring position, especially when there are two outs. Big league pitchers aren’t going to just give you a pitch to hit. You’ve got to earn it.

“In those situations, you’ve got to relax. You’ve got to calm down. You’ve got to fight the urge to do too much. You can’t hit every pitch in the gap. You’ve got to make sure you’re swinging at the right pitches, and sometimes they just make pitches, too.”