When your bats snooze, you lose. The 2024 Rockies are familiar with that scenario.
Their offense took a Sunday siesta in a 5-1 loss to the Cardinals at Busch Stadium. With a chance to capture a rare series in St. Louis, Colorado managed just five hits.
The Rockies dodged their eighth shutout of the season when they got to lefty reliever John King in the ninth. Ezequiel Tovar led off with his 20th double of the season and scored on Elias Diaz’s single.
Let the record show that one of Colorado’s hits came from second baseman Adael Amador on the first swing of his first at-bat in the first game of his major league career. In the third, Amador looped a leadoff single to right off Cardinals right-hander Andre Pallante’s first-pitch, 94.1 mph fastball.
Amador, Colorado’s top prospect, was called up from Double-A Hartford to replace veteran second baseman Brendan Rodgers, who was placed on the 10-day injured list with a left hamstring strain.
Pallante entered Sunday’s game with a 6.18 ERA, but he pitched five efficient innings, giving up three hits, striking out six and walking one. Colorado’s best chance to score came and went early. In the second, Diaz led off with a single, and Brenton Doyle followed with another single. But the rally died when Jake Cave grounded into a double play and Michael Toglia struck out.
“I was impressed by their starter,” manager Bud Black told reporters in St. Louis. “Pallante has a good, quick arm. He’s got a good live fastball with some movement, a hard slider, and a breaking ball that we really couldn’t solve. Their pitching shut us down until the ninth.”
Until Tovar’s double, St. Louis relievers had allowed no hits and had retired 11 hitters in a row.
The Cardinals knocked around Rockies starter Ty Blach for four runs on eight hits in five innings. St. Louis’ big swings came from Alec Burleson, who tagged Blach with a leadoff homer in the third, and Masyn Winn, who delivered a two-run, bloop single in the fourth. Blach’s ERA rose from 4.54 to 4.84.
“Ty’s stuff was fine,” Black said. “They did a good job of putting the ball in play and battling. The back-breaker for me was the soft single from Wynn, who had a good series. I’m impressed by their young shortstop. He’s doing some good things for them. He looks like he’s going to be a real player.
“Ty was just the victim of some good at-bats and timely hitting by the Cardinals.
After splitting the four-game series in St. Louis, the Rockies open a three-game series at Minnesota beginning Monday night.
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