Before this season, Coors Field was a ballpark that featured plenty of runs and long nights.
Well, the runs are still there but the evenings are shorter.
Colorado and St. Louis combined for 11 runs in the Rockies’ 7-4 win on Monday night, but the game took just 2 hours, 14 minutes.
Colorado will bid for its third straight victory overall on Tuesday night when the teams meet for the second contest of the three-game series in Denver.
Colorado left-hander Kyle Freeland (2-0, 0.00 ERA) will square off against St. Louis right-hander Miles Mikolas (0-1, 9.64) in the third start for both pitchers this season.
Freeland is off to one of the best starts in franchise history. He hasn’t allowed a run in 12 2/3 innings, and with two more scoreless frames to begin Tuesday, he would surpass Jhoulys Chacin, who began 2010 with 14 1/3 scoreless innings.
“This is the best start I’ve ever had,” Freeland said. “It’s a long season, though, and we have a lot of starts to go.”
To keep up the scoreless start, he’ll have to improve against the Cardinals. Freeland is 0-3 with a 4.88 ERA in five starts against them.
Freeland has formed a solid one-two punch with German Marquez for Colorado, but he might be carrying a lot more weight in the near future. Marquez, who got the nod on Opening Day, left his start on Monday night when he experienced tightness in the forearm of his right (pitching) arm.
Manager Bud Black said after the game Marquez was removed for precautionary reasons.
“Hope he’s going to be fine,” Black said. “We think he is. We’re going to re-evaluate him (Tuesday). He did the right thing, let us know it was tight, and we took him out.”
Mikolas has had a much different start to his season than Freeland. He has allowed five runs in each of his two starts and has been knocked around for 19 hits in 9 1/3 innings.
He has faced the Rockies seven times in his career — five of them starts — and is 1-1 with an 8.67 ERA. Four of those games, three starts and both decisions have come at Coors Field, where he has a 13.50 ERA.
Although Mikolas hasn’t had the start to the year he hoped, one Cardinals player is off on the right foot.
Rookie Jordan Walker extended his hitting streak to 10 games with a single in the seventh inning on Monday night. It’s the longest by a rookie to start his career in Cardinals history.
Walker has entrenched himself into the outfield rotation and could stay there if Dylan Carlson has to miss any time. Carlson left the game for precautionary reasons after feeling a pinch in his neck.
Carlson, like Walker, has been impressive in center field.
“He’s been stable out there, his instincts are good, and he’s a guy when he’s going back on the ball he’s pretty self-aware of the wall and the track — a familiarity with the position,” St. Louis manager Oliver Marmol said.
–Field Level Media
