Crew can't overcome early deficit against Rox

MILWAUKEE -- The Rockies roughed up Freddy Peralta in the 22-year-old right-hander’s return from the injured list on Thursday, scoring seven runs in the first two innings of an 11-6 Brewers loss at Miller Park that forced Craig Counsell’s club to settle for a series split after taking the first two games.

Peralta didn’t pitch well, evidenced by this stat line: four innings, eight hits, nine runs (six earned), three walks, three strikeouts, two home runs. The Brewers will discuss whether to remove him from the rotation, Counsell said.

Peralta also didn’t get much help, either from Milwaukee's defense or, in the case of one Travis Shaw fly ball, the baseball gods.

“We had a few moments that stood out -- a play here, a play there,” said center fielder Lorenzo Cain. “That could have changed the outcome for sure. We kept battling as an offense, kept trying to fight back and stay in it. They scored a little more runs than we could handle today.”

Here are five moments that conspired to turn what could have been a close game into a second straight Colorado romp:

Moment No. 1
Blackmon’s bunt hit
None on, no outs, top of first inning
Rockies leadoff man Charlie Blackmon pushed the game’s first pitch on the ground to third baseman Shaw, who picked it up with his bare hand and threw to first, where Eric Thames couldn’t make the catch while holding the bag. It wasn’t an error, but it meant Peralta, in his first Major League start since April 15, was working out of the stretch from his second pitch forward.

Moment No. 2
Denied a double play
Two on, one out, top of first inning
Peralta added to his early trouble by walking Trevor Story, but it looked like he found an out when David Dahl struck out and Nolan Arenado hit a sharp ground ball to Shaw. But Brewers second baseman Mike Moustakas, still working on his double-play turns, appeared to briefly bobble the transfer, and Arenado beat the throw to first base by a hair. That extended the inning for the Rockies to score four runs with two outs, the first three on Mark Reynolds’ two-strike, three-run double. Peralta threw 37 pitches in that opening inning alone.

“He has to put that guy away with two strikes,” Counsell said. “That's his job to finish that inning.”

Peralta has allowed 28 earned runs in the first innings of his 19 career starts.

“I've been working hard, but it's something I have to fix,” he said. “I'm really working on being better in the first inning.”

Moment No. 3
Arcia’s error
None on, two outs, top of second inning
Peralta was positioned to breeze through the second inning when he struck out opposing starter Jon Gray and induced back-to-back ground balls from Blackmon and Story. But Brewers shortstop Orlando Arcia, usually sure-handed, booted Story’s routine grounder for a two-out error that proved costly. Dahl cashed in with a run-scoring double before Arenado hit a two-run home run, his third in the past two days. It gave Colorado a 7-0 lead before Milwaukee sent its cleanup hitter to the plate for the first time.

Moment No. 4
Shaw just missed it
One on, two outs, bottom of third inning
Gray retired eight the first nine Brewers batters without allowing a hit before Ben Gamel singled with two outs in the third inning on a dangerous comebacker right at Gray’s body. It was the first of four consecutive hits, including Cain’s RBI double and Moustakas’ two-run single, and Shaw came mere feet from making it five hits in a row when he skied a 376-foot fly ball to the warning track in right-center field. Instead of pulling the Crew within two, the inning ended with Milwaukee in a 7-3 hole, which grew to 9-3 when Peralta surrendered Dahl’s two-run home run in the next half-inning.

Moment No. 5
Cain’s near catch
One on, two outs, top of fifth inning
The Rockies put the game another run out of reach in the fifth when Blackmon’s deep fly ball off Taylor Williams settled in Cain’s glove on the run at the center-field warning track. When Cain collided with the wall, the baseball popped out.

That’s not a catch, per Rule 5.09(a)(1), which says, “It is not a catch ... if simultaneously or immediately following [a fielder’s] contact with the ball, he collides with a player, or with a wall, or if he falls down, and as a result of such collision or falling, drops the ball.”

“They probably got it right,” Cain said. “I should have caught it anyways. That’s my fault.”