Bullpen woes lasting sting of series vs. Reds

DENVER -- For Rockies starting pitchers these days, facing hitters is the easy part. Sitting back and watching the bullpen is where the difficulty arises.

On Sunday afternoon, Antonio Senzatela worked seven innings and departed with a five-run lead. But five relief pitchers combined to allow five hits, four walks, one hit batter, a run-scoring wild pitch and a passed ball, all of which resulted in a head-scratching 7-6 loss at Coors Field.

“When I come out of the game, I assume we’ve got good pitchers, good relievers,” said Senzatela, who held the Reds to four hits and one run, with three strikeouts and one walk. “But that’s the ballgame. Anything can happen.”

The Rockies put runners on first and third with one out in the bottom of the ninth before speedy Garrett Hampson grounded into a double play. An unanswerable question is whether the winning run could have scored earlier in the inning. Connor Joe opened with a double, but froze on Ryan McMahon’s hard liner to center and could not score. A series in which the Rockies had late leads every game and got starting pitching to the tune of a 2.63 ERA, ended in a split.

Not only did the Rockies not capitalize on a series that they could have swept -- they lost 6-5 on Saturday in 12 innings while using eight relievers -- but they went 3-4 on the homestand. Now they return to the road -- where they are 2-14 -- for three games at San Diego.

“The theory of this game is, ‘Come back tomorrow if you’ve got another game,’” Rockies manager Bud Black said. “We’ve been pretty resilient. We’ll see.

“But we’ve always sort of bounced back. I thought today we bounced back pretty well after last night. ‘Senza’ gave us a great start. We were in position. And then the bullpen had a tough day.”

It’s been a tough week, actually. Just three times during the homestand did a starter give up as many as four runs. In one of those, Germán Márquez gave up a two-run Jonathan India homer on his final pitch, but ultimately earned a win over the Reds.

Senzatela gave up four runs Tuesday against the Padres in his return from a groin strain, but he was encouraged by his pitch action. On Sunday, he bordered on dominant for his seven frames.

“The biggest difference was I commanded my fastball and the breaking pitches were still there,” Senzatela said. “I kept them off balance.”

And back when the score was 6-1, Senzatela lofted a fly ball of his own that he hoped would go out. He was smiling then.

He had to smile afterward.

Mychal Givens, charged in the ninth with two runs (one scored on Dom Nuñez’s passed ball, another on Jordan Sheffield’s wild pitch), walked two, hit one and took the loss. But relief woes were shared with Yency Almonte (three runs, one out), Justin Lawrence (three hits, one run, one out) and Sheffield. Only Tyler Kinley, who retired his lone batter, escaped unscathed.

The ninth was as hard on Nuñez, the rookie catcher, as the pitchers. The tying run scored after the ball just tipped off the webbing of his mitt. On the go-ahead run, Sheffield’s pitch bounced and skidded, eluding him. The day started better for Nuñez -- he threw out Shogo Akiyama trying to steal second base to end the second inning, his first caught stealing of the season.

“In my relationships with catchers over the years as a pitcher, it’s tough when that happens,” Black said. “They’re feeling it. They care. It’s tough.”

Even with six games in five days and the heavy use Saturday, no excuses were sufficient for how Sunday’s undoing started. Almonte walked India to open the eighth -- which might have turned worse if not for Yonathan Daza’s sliding catch of a Nick Senzel liner to right -- and Givens hit India to open the ninth.

“Those sort of things you hear me talk about -- pitching principles,” Black said. “There’s a number of guys not adhering to that. We’ve got to get to that.”