González deals, but road woes continue

Chi Chi González followed up his best start of the season with his second straight quality start. He also was the Rockies’ top bat Wednesday afternoon at Petco Park.

That’s not quite a winning formula.

González’s loud double off the center-field wall in the third inning was just about the only noise the Rockies made against Padres starter Joe Musgrove. That meant González’s six strong innings went for naught in a 3-0 loss.

After a three-game sweep at the hands of the Padres, the Rockies have a five-game losing streak and are 2-17 on the road this season.

“I think you’ve just got to step back and tell guys they belong in the big leagues,” González said. “They’re all stars. They play well. Things will come around. We’re pitching the ball great now. Once we get a game that we pitch well, we hit well, things will go back to where they were.”

The Rockies have lost eight straight games at Petco Park, dating back to September 2019, but they have rarely had such an excruciating visit as this week. Over the three games, the Rockies scored once while collecting 12 hits and striking out 44 times.

Not since 2012 against the Dodgers had the Rockies been held to a single run in a three-game series, and it was only the fourth such occurrence in franchise history. The 12 hits matched the fourth-fewest for the team in a three-game series.

The Rockies had the misfortune of catching the Padres’ Big Three of Yu Darvish (National League Cy Young Award runner-up), Blake Snell (former American League Cy Young Award winner) and Musgrove (author of a no-hitter last month). Each of the Padres’ three starters reached double digits in strikeouts in the series in San Diego.

“They have a good pitching staff,” Rockies manager Bud Black said. “I thought the quality of at-bats were better at home. … I think we just squared up some balls at home, and here we didn’t.

“Musgrove had a good breaking ball. We couldn’t quite square that up. Snell last night, his stuff was good with good velocity, good slider, good changeup. Darvish was on with his variety of pitches. We just couldn’t solve those guys.”

González, who tossed seven scoreless innings vs. the Reds in his previous start, allowed four hits and struck out six batters in his six innings against the Padres. Two solo homers -- by Fernando Tatis Jr. in his first game back from the COVID-19 injured list and an inside-the-parker by Jake Cronenworth -- kept González from matching Musgrove nearly pitch for pitch.

The score was 1-0 in the sixth inning when Cronenworth yanked a 91.6 mph fastball to right field. Charlie Blackmon went back to the warning track, thinking he had a play, and he was too close to the wall to play the ricochet when the ball carried out of reach.

“I didn’t think he got it as well as he did,” González said. “The pitch was pretty far in there, but he got enough barrel to hit it to the wall. It took a funny bounce on Chuck, and [Cronenworth] runs, man. He’s got wheels, and he put them to the test right there. It just bounced back into no man’s land.”

Musgrove struck out 11 and held the Rockies to two baserunners over seven innings -- González’s double and Trevor Story’s seventh-inning single. With no better fortune in the final two innings against the bullpen, the Rockies left Petco Park eager to return home for an off-day Thursday before facing the D-backs at Coors Field.

“There’s some frustration,” Black said. “Guys are, for lack of a better term, a little pissed off. We’ll bounce back. There’s a lot of grit in this club.”