Rockies’ Ryan Feltner battered in 13-3 loss to Reds at Coors Field

Ryan Feltner’s baseball education has become a school of hard knocks.

The Rockies remain enamored with the right-hander’s powerful fastball and his potential as a starting pitcher. Still, Feltner struggled again Monday night, and the Rockies were bludgeoned, 13-3, by Cincinnati at Coors Field.

“I need to figure out a better way to get outs here,” Feltner said, referring to Coors Field, where his ERA sits at 7.30 after five starts. Opponents are hitting .340 against him at Coors, where Feltner has not won a start since Aug. 9, 2022, vs. St. Louis.

“It’s something I don’t like talking about, for me, pitching at Coors Field. But I need to figure out a better plan here,” Feltner continued. “I don’t have a solution yet. I’m just at the stage where I realize that something has to change.”

Manager Bud Black said the Reds took advantage of Feltner’s inability to locate pitches consistently.

“There were too many pitches (there were) not down enough or not up enough,” Black said. “He just didn’t execute pitches when he really needed to.”

The Reds arrived in LoDo having dropped 15 of their last 22 road games, but they ripped Feltner for eight runs on 10 hits over 4 1/3 innings, raising his overall ERA to 6.22. And the Reds kept right on ripping.

Colorado lost its third consecutive game — A hint of a coming June swoon, perhaps? — and received its third consecutive lackluster start. Right-hander Cal Quantrill and lefty Austin Gomber, the Rockies’ best starters this season, both struggled in weekend losses to the Dodgers in Los Angeles.

Manager Bud Black often says that starting pitching sets the tone for a team, but Feltner has been tone-deaf too often this season. Big innings have been Feltner’s undoing, and they were again Monday night. The Reds scored three times in the third, highlighted by Jeimer Candelario’s two-run homer, and three more in the fourth, the big hit a two-out, two-run triple to right by No. 9 hitter Will Benson.

Feltner has been victimized by multi-run innings 14 times this season, tied with Washington’s Patrick Corbin for the second-most in the National League. The Cubs’ Kyle Hendricks has the most, with 15.

“That was the story tonight,” Feltner said of the big innings. “I have definitely been doing better on the year, but tonight, that was definitely the story.”

Black said that a key part of Feltner’s maturation is dousing opponents’ would-be big innings.

“(It’s about) experience and learning from those games and learning from previous outings,” Black said. “With his sinker — his 95 mph sinker — there’s a groundball double play in there. He’s got get a better feel for that in-game awareness.”

After falling behind, 4-1, following Cincinnati’s first three at-bats, Colorado cut the lead to 4-3 in the third on a 425-foot solo homer to left-center by Brendan Rodgers and an RBI single by designated hitter Jacob Stallings.