Márquez fans 8, but falls in duel vs. Ohtani

ANAHEIM -- Monday night’s All-Star pitching matchup was a virtual standstill until Germán Márquez made one final mistake.

The duel went to the Angels’ Shohei Ohtani with the deciding blow being Jack Mayfield’s two-run, seventh-inning homer on Márquez’s hanging slider. Mayfield’s big fly landed in the short porch in left field, and Márquez and the Rockies were left with a 6-2 loss in the opener at Angel Stadium.

Márquez was nearing his eventual season high in pitches (107) -- still, he set up Mayfield well by working inside. He even got Mayfield to foul a pitch painfully off his foot during the encounter, but the slider that was supposed to dive outside and out of the zone stayed middle-in.

“That last inning, I was a little bit rushed with my delivery and my arm was late,” Márquez said. “Maybe I got a little tired.”

Going into the seventh, the Rockies trailed 2-1, but Márquez and Ohtani were each charged with just one earned run. Ohtani finished seven innings that way, with the run coming in the fifth on Dom Nuñez’s sixth homer of the season. Ohtani also created a scary moment for the Rockies by hitting Trade Deadline candidate Trevor Story on the left hand with a 97 mph fastball in the fourth. Story, however, completed the game and had two more plate appearances.

Each starter pitched in the All-Star Game earlier in the month at Coors Field, not that it affected Márquez’s demeanor.

“That’s the beauty of Germán, his consistency,” Rockies manager Bud Black said. “That should bode well in big games. He keeps that temperature burning at the right level of competitiveness and focus.

“You don’t want a guy to get too over-amped for big games, and you don’t want a guy that doesn’t get amped for games in the middle of May, when there’s maybe not that type of matchup.”

Ohtani is well known as a two-way sensation and he showed his offensive traits in the first inning by singling to drive in David Fletcher (who reached on an error by third baseman Joshua Fuentes), stealing second and scoring on a Jared Walsh single.

Until the mistake in the seventh, Márquez showed why he was included in pregame headlines -- he struck out eight in 6 1/3 innings, through he did allow eight hits and four runs (three earned).

Brendan Rodgers also homered in the eighth off Angels reliever José Quintana, but the Angels added two runs off rookie reliever Justin Lawrence in the bottom of the inning.

The Rockies have now dropped three games in a row after losing two of three at Dodger Stadium over the weekend. Though each contest was tight, the Rockies couldn’t deliver the big hit. They’re 10-37 away from Coors Field, despite more often than not playing behind an effective starter.

“We’re getting close,” Márquez said. “We have a pretty good team.”