Rockies see another potential rally thwarted

DENVER -- Trevor Story pulled off his batting helmet as if he wanted to slam it in frustration. But what good would that have done? What could he have done?

A seventh inning that began with torment, followed with a tease and ended with a devastating slider from Pirates reliever Richard Rodriguez to end a golden chance typified the Rockies’ 6-2 loss at Coors Field on Sunday -- their sixth consecutive defeat and 12th in 14 games.

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The Rockies expected to contend for their third straight postseason berth, but they instead find themselves 20 games below .500 (59-79) for the first time since they finished the 2015 season at 68-94. And the Pirates (60-77) earned a four-game sweep that pushed the Rockies to the second-worst record in the National League, ahead of the Marlins’ 48-88.

“Guys are hurt,” said third baseman Nolan Arenado, who homered for the 35th time this season, a solo shot in the sixth, but also had an error and acknowledged that he needs to work to avoid mental lapses. “That's a hard way to win. We're competing; we're doing the best we can. But we're not good enough right now. It is what it is. Injuries have hurt us, but at the same time, we're a little behind.”

After an awful stretch of starting pitching, the Rockies received a decent start from righty Jeff Hoffman, back from Triple-A Albuquerque for another chance. Hoffman yielded a first-pitch homer to Adam Frazier but pitched around nine hits in five innings to keep the Pirates at two runs.

But from the key seventh, here were the indignities, some self-inflicted, some fate-based:

Pitcher goes deep

The top of the seventh began with Pirates pitcher Steven Brault -- who held the Rockies to two runs and four hits in 6 1/3 innings -- launching his first career homer, a Statcast-projected 441-footer into the second deck in right off reliever Jesus Tinoco. Brault, who entered the inning leading, 2-1, used to sit in the Coors Field stands on days he wasn’t playing collegiately at Regis University in Denver.

The Rockies could have used more swings like Arenado’s -- or Brault’s, for that matter.

“Our starting pitcher did a nice job to keep us in the game, but their guy handcuffed us,” manager Bud Black said. “We talked a lot all year about playing those types of games where if we play well, we’ve got to score enough runs. And we’re really not generating the offense.”

Defensive lapse

Tinoco came close to ending the inning with a two-run deficit when he forced Josh Bell’s grounder to second baseman Pat Valaika for what should have been a double play. However, Tinoco drifted close to first base and to first baseman Ryan McMahon, who was assigned the error for not catching the throw.

In the top of the ninth, a McMahon error and Valaika unsuccessfully throwing behind a runner at third instead of accepting the easy out at first led to two unearned runs off Jairo Díaz.

“That’s on us -- we didn’t do what we needed to do late in the game, especially in Jairo’s inning,” said Black.

Black made note of two good defensive plays: Left fielder Ian Desmond and Arenado combined on a relay to the plate to end the third, and Desmond threw out Erik Gonzalez going for a double to end the sixth.

Missed opportunity

Tony Wolters chased Brault with the Rockies’ second hit of the bottom of the seventh, an RBI single to cut the difference to 4-2 and move speedy Garrett Hampson to third with one out. Pinch-hitter Daniel Murphy grounded hard to Rodriguez, who bobbled the ball. Hampson, caught in no man’s land, couldn’t make the plate in time.

Even with the pitching mistake from Tinoco, an incident of the sloppy defense that has crept into the team’s play and just plain bad luck, the Rockies had a chance with Story batting. But Rodriguez’s devastating pitch left the Rockies wanting.

Again.

“The highs and lows of winning and losing are real for all of us, me included,” Black said. “But I’ve been around a little bit and been through some tough years. This has been a tough second half. This has been a tough stretch here lately, too, but I have to do my part to be steady and sturdy.”