Tonight's game was sort of like throwing a wet slice of baloney against a window and watching it slide slowly down the glass, leaving a trail of grease along the way. When Tommy Medica hit that three run home run in the first inning you just knew how this thing was going to end up. It was just a question of how long it would take.
Baseball at Petco Park is a long, tedious affair. As the most extreme pitcher's park in the game, much of the romance of baseball is removed. A three run deficit feels like a runaway. Fly balls die in gloves instead of finding gaps or clearing the walls. Mediocre pitchers like Joe Weiland and Yohan Flande look good (well, Weiland looked good).
There was a little bit of offense early, before the sun went down and the marine layer descended. Charlie Blackmon led off with a solo home run, bringing his dinger total up to 19. It would be pretty neat if he reached 20 before the season concluded; he has three games in Los Angeles to try to reach that mark.
The Rockies' lead would be short-lived. Flande ran a fastball into the happy zone of Medica, who turned on it and banged the baseball off the balcony in left field. There were two men on base at the time.
The only Rockies other than Blackmon to record hits were Michael Cuddyer and Corey Dickerson, who each had three hit days. The rest of the club took oh-fers, including Wilin Rosario, who left those guys on base six times. Rosario was in a pretty good groove at Coors Field, but like seemingly every other Rockie, he goes ice cold on the road. Except for Dickerson, who is amazing.
Back to back hits by Cuddyer and Dickerson in the sixth inning brought the game to within a run, but once the bullpen of the Padres got involved, the bats evaporated. It was a slow, plodding walk through the rest of the innings that resulted in the 4-3 loss.
I wish I could have a more interesting result to discuss in my last game recap of the season. I wish there were post-season implications, or a big comeback, or even just a run-of-the-mill victory. But that isn't baseball. Baseball is built on the slow and ordinary, so when the extraordinary does happen, it's all the sweeter. There was precious little to get excited about this season, but I'm still going to miss the game in the upcoming months.
So it's time to sign off for 2014. See y'all with recaps next April. Can't wait.
Source: FanGraphs