DENVER -- Rockies left-handed pitcher Kyle Freeland charged himself with blinking at “winning time” Friday night. But it’s hard to lay much guilt on him for a 9-1 loss to the D-backs that unraveled after he left his solid start at Coors Field.

The game turned out to be the latest frustration for the Rockies during a whack-a-problem start to 2023. Freeland’s six-plus innings with three runs allowed on five hits added to an eight-game stretch of winnable starting pitching -- 3.32 ERA with 33 strikeouts to 13 walks. The Rockies have lost five of those eight.

An offense that managed one hit after leaving the bases loaded in the third inning and a defense which turned a seventh-inning deficit into a mess made this one unwinnable.

But Freeland, always pushing for more, entered the seventh tied at 1 facing the D-backs’ equally stingy Merrill Kelly. Freeland issued a leadoff walk to Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and yielded Christian Walker’s RBI double.

“In that situation I'm looking to get a ball on the ground, turn a double play, clear the bases and go from there,” said Freeland, who gave up a homer on a slider that didn’t make it inside far enough on Ketel Marte in the third inning, but otherwise controlled Arizona bats. “Christian put a good swing on a fastball inside and was able to put it in the gap. But that leadoff walk in the seventh during winning time? Not a good start to the inning. I definitely don’t want to see that.”

In more competitive times, the two-batter sequence would have been the whole story. But the rest of the contest illustrated a little of the bad luck and a lot of the poor baseball that has the Rockies at 8-19 and last in the National League West.

C.J. Cron singled in a run with two out in the third, but it was the only hit in five opportunities with runners in scoring position. Ryan McMahon drew a walk to load the bases, then Elias Díaz smoked a Kelly pitch straight to shortstop Nick Ahmed on one hop.

Kelly pitched around six hits and struck out five, and the Rockies managed next to nothing against relievers Scott McGough, Miguel Castro and Andrew Chapin.

"Kelly threw the ball well, kept us off-balance, moved the ball in and out,” Rockies manager Bud Black said. “That kept us at bay. We had a couple good swings against him, but he pitched well. He's capable of that. Overall, we hit some balls hard. We couldn't handle their bullpen."

In the aforementioned eight games during which the Rockies have had solid starting pitching (even with No. 1 starter Germán Márquez battling through arm problems that threaten his further participation), the offense is batting .222 – .245 with runners in scoring position. They’ve managed not to produce with consistency at home, where they are 3-8 this season.

Even the good wasn’t good enough. Cron’s RBI, after grounding into a double play with two on in the first, left him 4-for-27 with runners in scoring position. Jurickson Profar, still searching for timing after signing at the end of Spring Training, entered in a 5-for-27 rut. He had two one-out singles on a 2-for-4 night but did not score. Kris Bryant’s 2-for-4 left him at .309 but he has just eight RBIs.

The Rockies entered tied with the Giants for the Majors' lead in errors, then committed their 20th in the seventh. Second baseman Alan Trejo dropped a throw from third baseman McMahon that would have given reliever Justin Lawrence an important out and might even have led to a double play. Instead, the deficit sat at 4-1 – difficult for an offense so unproductive.

Black turned the ninth over to Dinelson Lamet, whom the Rockies believe will be a successful reliever. But Lamet’s continued location issues led to him giving up five runs on three hits and a walk in one-third of an inning, and left his season ERA at 12.19. He could have had another out, but McMahon and Trejo did not properly execute a rundown.

It all left the Rockies in a familiar position of pointing at ways the game could have been different, and trying to draw strength despite the same poor result.

“We’ve got to find a way to put everything together, pitching, hitting and defense,” said Díaz, whose .834 OPS is highest on the club. “We are so close. It’s going to turn around at some point.”