If the Colorado Rockies could ever pry Adam Wainwright from the St. Louis Cardinals, they might have in their hands the missing piece to their pitching rotation. The Cards ought to be in no hurry to let go of the 35-year-old, though. If there’s a chance these two teams could be playing one another in October, St. Louis is going to want Wainwright around.
Wainwright was dominant at Coors Field on Saturday night in a 3-0 Cardinals victory. The veteran right-hander pitched seven scoreless innings, striking out six and allowing just three hits and a walk. He improves to 10-1 lifetime against Colorado, with a 1.56 ERA over 81 innings pitched. He’s 4-0 at Coors Field, with a 2.21 ERA over five starts and one relief appearance. In 15 career appearances (11 starts) against Colorado, Wainwright has allowed just 14 earned runs with a WHIP of 1.012. He his only loss against Colorado came in 2009. A solid effort from Colorado’s homegrown rookie, Kyle Freeland, was not enough for Colorado. Freeland allowed three runs on eight hits and two walks over six innings in the loss.
Colorado’s offense showed a little life late when the Rockies loaded the bases against reliever Trevor Rosenthal in the eighth inning. Tony Wolters earned a leadoff walk, and Gerardo Parra reached on a fielding error by first baseman Jedd Gyorko to bring the tying run to the plate with no one out. Charlie Blackmon and DJ LeMaheiu each struck out swinging, however. Nolan Arenado took a free pass to load the bases with two outs, but Carlos Gonzalez grounded out to second base to end the threat. Mark Reynolds had a leadoff single in the ninth off Seung-Hwan Oh, who retired Ian Desmond, Trevor Story and Tony Wolters in order to close things out.
Colorado falls to 32-19 in the loss. The Cardinals are 24-22. The rubber match of the series will be Sunday at 1:10 p.m. MDT. Colorado has not lost a series in eight consecutive tries, and will need to defeat Lance Lynn (4-2 , 2.53 ERA), who has been dominant of late. The Rockies send another rookie to the mound opposite Lynn; German Marquez (3-2 , 3.86 ERA) will go for Bud Black.
