The bats went off, to begin a thunderous shelling of St. Louis, in the bottom of the first inning and ended in a 15-4 Colorado Rockies blowout.
Cardinals starting pitcher Jaime Garcia had an inning he probably won’t forget any time soon. He didn’t record an out until his sixth batter, Ty Wigginton — and even that went to a 3-2 count. I felt so bad for the guy, while at the same time greatly enjoyed watching my team run the table on him in the first inning. He was completely shell-shocked right from the jump off. The Rockies sent 12 batters to the plate in the bottom of the first, with Eric Young Jr. getting two hits in the same inning. Carlos Gonzalez, Troy Tulowitzki, Todd Helton and Chris Iannetta all piled on with hits. By the end of the game, all the starters got hits, except the “new guy,” starting pitcher Juan Nicasio.
The Rockies called up Nicasio from the double-A Tulsa Drillers. The 24-year-old jumped triple-A straight to Coors Field, and left the game after seven innings with a 12-1 score and a 0.00 ERA. That’s a hell of a major league debut on Fox television. I was pretty sure I was watching a “game” of The Show 11 on the Rookie setting. It looked like batting practice, which doesn’t happen often. The bleeding finally ended in the fourth inning. Garcia’s day was over after Iannetta hit the first of his two home runs to put the Rockies up 12-0.
There isn’t much to say other than the bats came to life, the Rockies got some good bounces and they completely lit up Garcia, who earned himself a big loss on the day. Who could possibly not be happy about the Rockies blowing out a team that was well above .500? Ubaldo Jimenez. If I was him, I would be the only person with a surly attitude. I’d be asking the guys why the double-A call up gets “all-hands on deck.” Jimenez is 0-5, partially because the team’s offense has failed across the board, especially when he starts.
They need to bottle up the air around Saturday’s effort, because that’s the stuff they need to try and produce more consistently.
