The 27-77 Colorado Rockies have made many errors on track to being the worst team in baseball this season. But on Saturday night, two incidents on back-to-back pitches truly showed how bad the team has been.
In the bottom of the sixth inning, the Rockies were down 6-0 on the road against the Baltimore Orioles.
Rookie relief pitcher Ryan Rolison was on the bump and was 25 pitches into his outing when he faced outfielder Cedric Mullins with one out.
Mullins tapped a simple grounder to the left of the mound and within the pitcher’s range. Rolison ran over to field the ball, but as he spun around to toss it to first baseman Warming Bernabel, he fired his throw wide and low of the fielder.
Mullins reached second on the throwing error, Tyler O’Neill reached third, and Colton Cowser made it home to open the lead to 7-0.
On the very next pitch, Rolison dealt to catcher Jacob Stallings – who hit the ball to almost the exact same spot on the field.
Rockies rookie Ryan Rolison had a day to forget after giving up two runs on two throwing errors
On back-to-back pitches, batters hit a grounder left of the mound and Rolison picked them up
His first throw went low and wide while his second went too high – scoring two runs
Rolison raced over and fielded the ball once again. This time, instead of his throw going low and wide, the pitcher tossed it at least four feet above the head of Bernabel.
The bad toss scored O’Neill and advanced Stallings and Mullins into scoring position.
Rolison got Jackson Holliday to ground out to second before he was pulled from the game.
Surprisingly, Rolison didn’t have the worst pitching performance from a Rockies ace tonight.
That dishonor would go to Nick Anderson, who gave up five runs on six hits in the bottom of the seventh inning to prolong the misery and stretch the Orioles lead to an unhealthy 17-0.
Baltimore would get one more run on the board in the bottom of the eighth to arrive at an 18-0 final score.
Despite their horrible first half of the season – which included a 21-0 loss to the Padres back in May – the Rockies have won five of their first eight games coming out of the All-Star Break. They’ll hope to win the series with a game on Sunday.
