PHOENIX — If Thursday night’s performance at Chase Field had been a Broadway play, the Rockies’ show would have closed after one performance. Before the reviews even came out.
That’s how bad opening night was for the Rockies, whose third-inning pratfall set a bushel of records and set the stage for a 16-1 loss to the defending National League champion Diamondbacks.
“One huge inning was the back-breaker,” manager Bud Black said. “They had a lot of momentum, and a lot of hits, and balls kept going through.”
Talk about March Madness. It was Colorado’s worst opening-day defeat, topping a 10-1 loss at Miami on March 31, 2014.
Left-hander Kyle Freeland, making his third opening day start, endured one of the worst games of his career. After a solid spring training, he never saw it coming.
“Unfortunately, it came on opening day, and it was one of those days where my location wasn’t there,” he said. “It just seemed like, whatever I threw up there, whether I executed or not, they put good wood on it.”
In a scant 2 1/3 innings, he gave up 10 runs on 10 hits, including a two-run homer to Lourdes Gurriel in the first inning. The 10 runs Freeland surrendered were a career-high.
“Everything was just left middle and up and I wasn’t executing down in the zone,” Freeland said. “Against a team like that, that has good (hitters) all the way through, you can’t do that. They took advantage of every single mistake.”
Freeland said he didn’t think he was tipping his pitches. Neither did Black, though he planned to review Freeland’s performance on video.
“He had too many balls up and caught too much of the strike zone,” Black said. “It was not down at the knees with Kyle’s usual moment.”
Freeland departed in the third inning and was relieved by Anthony Molina, making his major league debut. The D-backs pounded Molina, a Rule-5 draft pickup, for six runs on six hits in one-third of an inning.
“Molina left the ball up, he didn’t have his slider and his changeup didn’t come into play,” Black said. “That was a tough baptism for him in his very first major league outing.”
About that third inning: Arizona scored 14 runs, ripped 13 hits, and sent 18 batters to the plate — the most in all categories by Rockies pitching in a single inning in franchise history. The D-backs’ 14 runs were tied for the fourth-most in the majors in an inning since 1900. It took the Rockies 34 minutes and three pitchers — Freeland, Molina and lefty Jalen Beeks — to escape the inning.
Before Thursday night, no team had ever allowed 14-plus runs in an inning in its first game of a season. The previous high was way back on April 14, 1925, when the St. Louis Browns allowed 12 runs to Cleveland in the eighth inning.
The Rockies managed just four hits, two coming from Ryan McMahon, who doubled home Brendan Rodgers in the second inning for Colorado’s only run. McMahon reached base four times.
Arizona right-hander Zac Gallen pitched five innings, allowing one run on three hits with two walks and three strikeouts.
Tough Opening Night
The Rockies’ 16-1 loss to the Diamondbacks included a bushel of negative records:
• In the third inning, starter Kyle Freeland allowed seven consecutive batters to reach base safely, tied for the most in a Rockies season opener. Jason Jennings also allowed seven straight batters to reach on April 1, 2003 at Houston.
• The 14 hits given up in the third were the most allowed by the Rockies in a single inning in team history. The previous high was 10, done three times (last, Sept. 17, 2023, vs. San Francisco).
• The 16 runs given up in the third inning were the Rockies’ most ever in an inning, topping the 13 runs given up to the Angels on June 24, 2023, at Coors Field in the third inning of a 25-1 loss.
• Before Thursday, no major league team had ever allowed 14 or more runs in an inning in its game of a season. The previous high was on April 14, 1925, when the St. Louis Browns gave up 12 runs to Cleveland in the eighth inning.
Source: Elias Sports Bureau
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