Coors Field, in theory, is a lot of fun. It’s a place where the baseball magically flies further, with dingers all over the place and double-digit run totals all the time. It’s extra-base hit galore, and every home run goes 450 feet. It’s like some kid messed with the settings on a video game. It’s a mythical dream world for people who love to see offense in baseball; a place where Dom Smith can hit triples. I mean, they’re literally playing baseball in the sky.
But Coors Field, in practice, is actually a total disaster. 10-8 games are really fun from afar, or at least if they’re few and far in between. It’s not fun to watch your favorite team’s pitching staff suddenly be completely unable to record an out or spin a breaking ball for three or four days in a row just because they happen to be playing on the surface of Mars. It makes for laborious four-hour games, high ERAs, worn-out pitching staffs and an angry Keith Hernandez.
The Mets played their third game of four in Coors Field last night, and it was the second-straight Coors Classic™. Seth Lugo was the sacrificial lamb got the start and fared about as well as you’d expect any pitcher who relies on his curveball to fare in altitude. He lasted just three innings, allowing six runs (three earned) on six hits, with five strikeouts.
There was too much scoring to give a total blow-by-blow, but basically, the Mets scored a bunch, then the Rockies scored a bunch, then the Mets scored a bunch, then the Rockies scored a bunch, and then somehow nobody scored for three innings, and then the Rockies won.
To be more specific, the Mets jumped out to a 4-1 lead by the second inning, but the Rockies tied it up in the bottom of the second. Colorado then took the lead in the third, pushing two more runs across off Lugo to take a 6-4 lead. The Mets clawed back in the fifth, though, once Colorado went to their bullpen. They scored four runs, with the big blow being an Asdrubal Cabrera two-run single to take the 8-6 lead. But that was short-lived, as Ryan McMahon promptly hit a three-run bomb off Robert Gsellman in the bottom half of the inning to push the Rockies back out to a 9-8 lead.
Really, this park is a joke.
Charlie Blackmon added a solo homer in the bottom of the sixth off Anthony Swarzak to make it 10-8, and then the teams magically remembered how to pitch for a few innings. Swarzak settled down and wound up delivering two solid innings, and Jeurys Familia followed in the eighth, working through a first-and-third, one out jam that was created when Jose Reyes booted an easy double play ball. It was Reyes’s ninth error of the year in just 24 games played in the field; a pace of 56 errors per 150 games. Now, errors can be misleading, which is why it’s only fair that we point out that Reyes has a -31.8 UZR/150 at shortstop and a -61.2 UZR/150 at third base this year. That said, he did go 1-for-3 with two walks, which raised his wRC+ all the way up to 41. He’s just a few more hits away from Jeff Mathis territory.
There’s really no other analysis that we can draw from this game, because nothing counts in Coors Field.
OTHER NEWS OF THE DAY
The Mets needed a fresh arm in their bullpen because Coors Field is stupid, so they called up Chris Flexen and optioned Hansel Robles back to Triple-A.
WHAT’S NEXT
The Mets mercifully wrap up their series in Denver today at 3:10 p.m. Steven Matz will try to survive the thin air against Kyle Freeland of the Rockies.
Photo credit: Ron Chenoy – USA Today Sports