​What a disaster for the Colorado Rockies. The Rockies entered their four-game series at Oracle Park hoping to climb into fourth place in the National League West, ahead of the San Francisco Giants. Instead, the Giants found a way to score early and often, tallying an 8-2 victory over Colorado on Thursday night.
Starting pitcher Ryan Feltner gave the Rockies a chance to stay in the game, but a rough fifth inning doomed the effort. Denver led 4-2 when Feltner departed, and San Francisco pounded the bullpen from there, adding four more runs, including a stretch of batting practice against Rockies reliever TJ Shook. Feltner did not have it working, lasting only 4.1 innings while allowing six hits, four earned runs, four walks, two strikeouts and two home runs. His 4.55 ERA now reflects a tough night and a pitcher who wasn’t able to go deeper.
Victor Vodnik took over in the fifth and worked 1.2 innings, permitting one hit and one walk while fanning three. Shook inherited the mess in the seventh and didn’t handle the task at hand, failing to tighten the gap as the Giants padded their lead.
San Francisco rolled out Casey Whisenhunt, who had just been recalled from Triple-A Sacramento and started in place of Robbie Ray for the Giants. Whisenhunt went 5.2 innings, allowing three hits, two earned runs, four walks, and four strikeouts, posting a 3.38 ERA after this solid outing. JT Brubaker and Eric Schmitt followed, with Caleb Kilian closing the game for the Giants.
San Francisco struck first with a Casey Schmitt solo homer in the bottom of the first, his 18th of the season. The Rockies answered in the top of the fourth with a two-run blast from Willi Castro, turning a 1-0 deficit into a brief 2-1 lead for Colorado. The Giants, however, answered back in the bottom of the fourth with a run that tied the game and then pulled ahead in the bottom of the fifth with a Bryce Eldridge home run.
The dagger came in the bottom of the eighth when Shook yielded four runs on five consecutive hits, including a Willy Adames three-run homer that left no doubt about the night’s outcome. The thrashing capped a discouraging performance for Colorado, as the offense sputtered at critical moments against a Giants pitching staff that, while not dominant over the year, was effective when it mattered.
Colorado did show brief flashes of life, but too often their lineup looked feckless against Giants pitching. The Rockies had productive moments and a handful of scoring chances that never fully came together, underscoring their inability to put pressure on the Giants’ bullpen when it mattered most. This was a night that emphasized how far Colorado still has to go to climb into the upper tier of the division.
For Colorado, Thursday offered a sobering reminder that they cannot rely on a single rally to offset a vulnerable bullpen and a handful of missed opportunities. After the dramatic stumble on Wednesday against the Los Angeles Dodgers, a game they lost 4-3 on a late comeback, the Rockies faced another setback that added to the frustration of fans hoping for a division push. The good news is that there is still an opportunity to quickly turn the page, shake off this loss, and try to regain momentum in the next game. If Colorado can clean up its late-inning execution and find a more consistent offensive approach, they can begin chipping away again at the Giants and the rest of the division.