Rockies go down early, never recover in 16-strikeout performance as Braves clinch series

Colorado Rockies fans didn’t need to watch past the first inning on Wednesday to find out how the second game of the series in Atlanta panned out.

Colorado went down 4-0 in that opening frame en route to a 5-2 loss. The Rockies struck out 16 times, and everyone in the lineup had at least one K as the Braves clinched the series to drop Colorado to 51-89.

The Braves got on the board quickly, creating chaos with two outs in the first inning after rookie right-hander Bradley Blalock retired the first two batters. Marcell Ozuna doubled, then Matt Olson doubled him home.

And after a walk to Travis d’Arnaud, Jarred Kelenic delivered the gut punch with a three-run homer to right to make it 4-0.

But the Rockies responded in the top of the next inning, spurred by Nolan Jones’ one-out walk. Sam Hilliard tripled off Charlie Morton to score Jones, then Charlie Blackmon’s two-out double to right brought Hilliard home to cut the deficit to 4-2.

Neither starter yielded any further damage after that, with both Blalock and Morton throwing five innings. Blalock worked around walks in the second, third, fourth and fifth, with two of those frames featuring free passes to the leadoff man. The Rockies, meanwhile, had traffic in Morton’s final three frames but couldn’t capitalize.

With the game turned over to the bullpens, Colorado’s was the first to crack. Jorge Soler’s RBI single off Jake Bird in the sixth pushed Atlanta’s lead to 5-2.

Old friend Pierce Johnson, a Faith Christian product who pitched for the Rockies before the club dealt him to the Braves at last year’s trade deadline, pitched a one-two-three seventh. Joe Jimenez replicated that feat in the eighth before Raisel Iglesias slammed the door in the ninth for his 30th save.

The Braves improved to 61-3 when leading after the seventh inning. Meanwhile, the Rockies accumulated 29 strikeouts in the first two games of the series. Colorado only had one hit in the final seven innings on Wednesday.

Criswell responds to angry Merrifield

A day after rookie right-hander Jeff Criswell beaned the Braves’ Whit Merrifield in the head with a 94 mph fastball in the seventh inning of Colorado’s loss in the series opener, Criswell expressed contrition for the errant pitch.

“I sent a message over and just again tried to apologize — reiterate that it was not intentional,” Criswell told MLB.com. “At least try to get that message over to him.”

Merrifield was not seriously injured by the pitch, but he was immediately removed from the game, and then afterwards ripped Criswell and other inexperienced pitchers who are gassing hitters up and in, sometimes with perilous results.

“It’s just ridiculous,” Merrifield told reporters on Tuesday. “Where the game is at right now, it’s just ridiculous. … The way pitchers are throwing now, there’s no remorse or regard for throwing up and in. Guys are throwing hard as they can and they don’t care where the ball goes.”

As there’s been a widespread increase in velocity across the majors over recent years, with upper-90s and triple-digit fastballs no longer uncommon, the number of hit batters has correspondingly skyrocketed.

As a reference point, in 1980, there were 657 hit by pitches in MLB. In 2000, there were 1,573. And over the last three seasons, over 2,000 batters have been hit each year, including 2,112 in 2023. Entering Wednesday, 1,767 had been plunked in 2024. Colorado added to that tally again on Wednesday when Seth Halvorsen hit Eli White with a 100 mph heater on the wrist in the eighth.

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