The Colorado Rockies took two of three from the Pittsburgh Pirates and five of seven overall on their East Coast road trip. They’ll return to Colorado with an 11-9 record and chance to build upon it after back-to-back series wins.

Continued road success

Even after the 10-2 beatdown that the Rockies took at the hands of the Pirates in the series finale, the Rockies finished 5-2 on the road trip and have to be happy with the result, especially considering they lost four of six right before the road trip and played four games against World Series contender Washington. Colorado is now 9-5 away from Coors Field, a terrific road record by any measurement.

The Nationals won 97 games in 2017 to claim the NL East, and the Rockies had to face their nasty 1-2 pitching punch in Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg. Colorado can be proud of the series wins they strung together, including beating Strasburg on Sunday. The Rockies would love the momentum to continue into their six-game home stand, where Colorado is only 2-4 at home.

After twenty games, the Ryan McMahon experiment is beginning to show results…

And those results are bad. Really bad. McMahon was 3-for-18 on the road trip with nine strikeouts and one RBI.

Giving McMahon repetitions is exactly what the Rockies need to do, but it’s uncertain if they can afford to for a long period of time — if he doesn’t turn it around in short order, Colorado may have no choice but to send McMahon back to the minors.

Freeland struggles

Kyle Freeland had an opportunity to build on his best start of the season — a 4 2/3-inning, one-run effort in his start against Washington.

Against the Pirates Wednesday, Freeland was sailing before the two-out mark in the fourth inning. A two-out walk led to major damage in the inning and Freeland was pulled after finishing the fourth.

There’s no sugar-coating it: Freeland hasn’t been good. His next chance to bounce back will come on Tuesday night against the San Diego Padres, who currently rank in the bottom five in both batting average and on-base percentage.

What’s next

The Rockies return home for a six-game home stand, with three against the Cubs and three against the Padres. Colorado has not played at home since the ‘brawl’ that led to the suspension of Nolan Arenado, who is expected to return to the Colorado lineup in the Chicago series.