Say cheese! Jones' face says it all on 3-hit day

ST. PETERSBURG -- Rockies rookie Nolan Jones has the face that tells you what’s happening with the franchise.

Now, that is not to be read as The Face of the Franchise -- a moniker that is earned through meritorious service and less-tangible metrics like fan and media Q Scores. But you can follow a Rockies game merely by a shot of Jones' face.

The Rockies’ 5-3 loss to the Rays on Thursday afternoon was the final act of a three-game sweep they endured -- with each loss coming in the eighth inning or later. They’ve lost four straight in the same manner. But let’s look at the series finale though Jones’ facial expressions:

• There was the ear-to-ear grin as he gave the double-wing signal to the dugout after his first-inning double, the first of his three hits.
• A look of puzzled disappointment engulfed him as he lay on the left-field warning track in the fourth. He crashed back-first against the fence after coming up empty on a leap for Luke Raley’s triple. “I definitely could have caught it, and I told Peter [Lambert, the Rockies’ starter] right away, ‘That was on me,’” he said.
• There was the quick smile in the fifth, followed by the forced nonchalance that is customary after a home run -- a 376-footer to right-center for three runs and a 3-2 lead.
• In the end, Jones dropped to one knee and his eyes emitted frustration after Josh Lowe’s two-run eighth-inning homer sealed the defeat.

“There’s obviously frustration there,” said Jones, who’s reached base in eight of his past nine games. “We want to win baseball games.

“But I think it’s a good sign that we’re here competing with these guys. They’re a good playoff team, and we were in every single game.”

Where the rebooting Rockies (48-79) will end up is anyone’s guess, with the answer likely being revealed over years rather than days or even months. The best Colorado can do now is compete like Jones -- a 6-foot-4 athletic fellow who doesn’t mind getting dirty, showing some of the fastest wheels in the sport and, well, caring.

By giving 22-year-old rookie shortstop Ezequiel Tovar a rare day off, the lineup was the most experienced it has been in a long time. This series showed that a makeshift rotation is competitive. Lambert, having to labor against a Rays lineup that the Rockies could take some pointers from, yielded two runs and fanned six in five innings, and the pitching was generally competitive.

But the long-way-to-go Rockies didn’t do enough with opportunities in all three games. And the bullpen struggled, with Tommy Doyle giving up an Isaac Paredes homer to tie it in the sixth, and Matt Koch handling a scoreless seventh but giving up Lowe’s homer.

Jones’ fifth-inning homer came off Erasmo Ramírez, the third leg of the Rays’ five-man pitching relay. The Rockies had multiple men on in two previous innings, and the fifth ended with Ramírez forcing Harold Castro into a double-play grounder.

“In games that are well-pitched, a lot of times it comes down to a big swing, and that was ours today -- the only runs we got were on Nolan’s home run,” Rockies manager Bud Black said.

It’s OK for Jones, 25, to beam during the good times, because he is hard on himself at the other times. He dropped a fly ball, which was scored a double, during the nine-run eighth-inning nightmare on Tuesday and finished that night angry with himself.

Jones’ 10 outfield assists rank sixth in the Majors, even though he didn’t make his season debut until May 26 and played on and off at first and third base. But any defensive miscue is a sign to work harder, so he can fully enjoy having a good game.

“Defensive struggles, I don’t take lightly,” said Jones, who was drafted by Cleveland in the second round in 2017 as an infielder but was in a transition to outfield when he debuted last year with the Guardians “It’s something that I’m constantly working on and getting better at.

“But there is a little success here at the end of the series, which is always nice. When you feel confident in your swing, it’s always nice. The body wasn’t feeling great, so I tried to simplify a little bit. Sometimes, good things happen when you do that.”