Carlos Rodón needed 98 pitches to record 12 outs.
The Rockies drove up Carlos Rodón’s pitch count by fouling off pitch after pitch. His exit after four innings put San Francisco’s bullpen — one coming off a league-worst 6.26 ERA in May — in a precarious crunch.
Even against the last-place Rockies, holding onto a one-run lead for five innings is a major test. Zack Littell and José Álvarez weren’t up to it, as Colorado tagged them for a three-run, game-changing sixth inning. Charlie Blackmon’s pinch Splash Hit put Colorado ahead and made Rodón’s short start consequential.
Colorado’s 5-3 win over the Giants (29-25) added another data point in a concerning trend for a club that entered the season with rational confidence in its bullpen. Before Tuesday’s blown lead, SF had the 25th-ranked bullpen in terms of ERA. The 4.47 mark comes from a nearly identical group that posted a sport-best 2.99 ERA last season.
When the bullpen is underperforming, starters pitching deeper into games becomes more valuable.
It seemed like something clicked for Rodón after his last turn. In his final inning in Philadelphia, he generated nine swing-and-misses — more than his entire start prior. He’d thrown two changeups — a seldom-used pitch he still believes in — that apparently unlocked his more dominant four-seam fastball.
Curt Casali, his batterymate that game against the Phillies, told The Athletic “that’s when the light’s came on.”
But Rodón couldn’t carry whatever he seemed to discover into his Rockies start. He needed 50 pitches to get through the first two innings, which included a leadoff home run to former Giant Connor Joe. Two singles led to another run in the third, and a 26-pitch inning.
Even when Rodón worked around a leadoff double in the fourth inning, he couldn’t find the putaway pitch. He put ninth-hitter Elias Díaz in an unfavorable 2-2 count with two outs, but couldn’t sneak anything past the Rockies catcher. Díaz fouled off a curve, a four-seamer, two sliders and another heater before finally striking out swinging.
Díaz slammed his bat on the dirt, shattering the barrel. The frustration was understandable, but he still did his job by driving Rodón’s pitch count up to 98 with a 10-pitch plate appearance.
The entire Rockies lineup was keyed in on Rodón’s stuff — not just Díaz. Colorado fouled off 33 Rodón pitches in their 53 total swings against him. They fouled off 20 fastballs and whiffed on just three. He generated just eight swing-and-misses in his four innings.
Despite Rodón’s inefficiency, he left the game with a lead. A two-run Wilmer Flores home run and two-out RBI single from Luis González gave San Francisco a 3-2 edge.
John Brebbia was the first reliever to inherit it. He allowed a baserunner, but otherwise pitched a clean fifth. He was the first to embark on the daunting task of holding onto the one-run lead.
SF threatened in the bottom fifth, but stranded runners on second and third when Thairo Estrada — pinch-hitting for Brandon Crawford — lined out.
Then the Rockies put a runner in each scoring position on Littell. Colorado inserted Blackmon as a pinch-hitter, and San Francisco countered with Álvarez to get the lefty-lefty matchup. But Blackmon won the chess match as he torched a low and inside changeup 107.5 mph into the San Francisco Bay.
Blackmon’s three-run homer put Colorado up 5-3. Álvarez, who posted a 2.37 ERA in high-leverage, often middle-inning spots last year, has now allowed eight earned runs in 14.1 innings.
And although Sam Long tossed three hitless innings to keep San Francisco within reach, the Rockies’ bullpen did exactly what SF’s couldn’t. The Giants put up eight straight zeroes on the box score.
Rodón’s four-inning start slid an AP-level test across the table to SF’s bullpen. With the game breaking sixth inning, they flunked.
