DENVER — Two left-handers who have been very successful lately will square off Thursday when Kyle Freeland starts for the Colorado Rockies against Steven
Matz of the New York Mets.
The Rockies will be looking to win the four-game series after winning their second straight game over the Mets 10-8 on Wednesday. Colorado will also be
trying to avoid a dubious major league record. The Rockies have allowed at least
eight runs in each of their past nine home
games
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longest such streak.
Freeland (6-6, 3.59 ERA) has made 14 starts, half of which the Rockies have won. He worked a season-high seven innings for the fourth time this season in
his last start Saturday at Texas. Freeland allowed two runs in seven innings,
ending up with no-decision in Colorado’s 5-2 loss.
In his past 10 starts, Freeland, 25, is 6-3 with a 2.89 ERA and has limited opposing hitters to a .237 average and a .646 OPS in that stretch. He’s 1-0 with
a 1.80 ERA in two career games (one start) against the Mets. The start was on
May 6 at Citi Field this season when Freeland, the winning pitcher, allowed two
runs and four hits in seven innings with eight strikeouts and one walk in
Colorado’s 3-2 victory.
In eight starts at Coors Field this season, Freeland is 3-2 with a 2.93 ERA. A Denver native who grew up pitching in the city’s mile-high altitude, Freeland
is 9-10 with a 3.52 ERA in 24 career games (21 starts) at Coors Field and has
never been fazed by the hitter-friendly ballpark.
“In my mind, it’s baseball,” Freeland said. “You have to make your pitches, no matter where you’re at. Home runs are going to be home runs. People are going
to hit good pitches here. People are going to hit bad pitches here. If you don’t
execute the pitch and they get whacked out of the park, it’s going to happen
here; it’s going to happen at sea level.
“Things can snowball on you quicker here just because of how large our outfield is. But you still have to have that mentality of I can get out of this
jam here.”
While winning his last start, Matz (3-4, 3.31) gave up one run in 6 2/3 innings Saturday at Arizona in the Mets’ 5-1 triumph. Matz lost 2-0 to the
Rockies at Citi Field on May 5, giving up one run and three hits in six innings.
He’s 0-3, 6.50 in four career starts against the Rockies and 0-0, 5.40 in one
start at Coors Field.
In his past five starts, Matz, 27, is 2-1 with a 1.88 ERA. During that stretch, Matz has allowed two or fewer runs in four of the five outings, and
opposing batters are hitting .208 with a .609 OPS.
“He’s in a good place mentally,” New York pitching coach Dave Eiland said. “He’s in attack
mode
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year, he was a little bit unsure of himself, not really trusting his stuff as
much. So therefore, he wasn’t in attack mode. And when the first little thing
would go wrong … he would kind of lose his concentration, his focus, and it
would affect the next few pitches and might make the difference in his
outing.
“He’s worked really hard at letting things go that are out of his control and just focusing on things he can control. And once he started doing it, he got
back to believing in himself, trusting his stuff, attacking the strike zone,
attacking the hitters.”
At this point after nearly a month of superb pitching, Matz has a reservoir of success to draw upon when things do go wrong.
“I’m sure it still eats at him a little bit,” Eiland said, “but he doesn’t wear his emotions on his sleeve, so to speak.”
The Cincinnati Reds are much better now than they were a month into the season, and it’s partly because Anthony DeSclafani is much better than they
anticipated.
Not only DeSclafani, the pitcher. DeSclafani, the hitter, too.
The Reds return to Great American Ball Park on Thursday to take on the first-place Milwaukee Brewers, but that’s nothing new of late for interim
manager Jim Riggleman’s resurgent team.
The Reds have played their last seven games against teams that were in first place or within percentage points of the top spot. They swept the Cubs in four
games and won two of three in Atlanta.
“It says a lot for our club that we can play first-place clubs and win these series,” Riggleman said Wednesday following a come-from-behind 6-5 win at
Atlanta, the Reds’ ninth victory in 10 games and 12th victory in 15 games.
“(We want to) keep rolling into Cincinnati,” Adam Duvall said after his two-run single keyed a three-run seventh inning that included a Scooter Gennett
RBI single.
DeSclafani (3-1, 4.09 ERA) is a big presence during the surge, and not just because he’s won his last three starts — this after missing all of last season
and the first two months of this season with multiple injuries. After missing so
much time, the Reds simply weren’t sure what they would get from him this
season.
His last time out, the right-handed DeSclafani limited the Cubs to two runs and three hits in 6 1/3
innings
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with a grand slam — the first slam by a Cincinnati pitcher in 59 years.
DeSclafani will be yet another bat in the Reds’ order that Milwaukee right-hander Junior Guerra (3-5, 2.82) must be concerned about in the opener of
the four-game NL Central series.
The Brewers continue to occupy first place in the division, but even a three-run ninth inning wasn’t enough Wednesday as they lost 5-4 at home to the
last-place Kansas City Royals, whose .313 winning percentage is the second-worst
in the majors.
“Even in our losses, we’re making the other team work a lot,” starting pitcher Brent Suter told reporters. “From that respect, I love how we’re
playing. (But) it would be nice to win some of these series.”
The Brewers have lost six of their last 10 games, and now they must take on a Reds team that doesn’t look anything now like the team Milwaukee swept in a
three-game series April 30-May 2 at Great American Ball Park — losses that
dropped the Reds to 7-24. The Brewers have won five of six overall from the Reds
this season.
“We just want to keep winning. If we take series after series we’re going to be just fine,” said Reds reliever Jackson Stephens (2-0), who got the win
Wednesday with 1 2/3 scoreless relief innings.
The Brewers, conversely, led 1-0 Wednesday, only to have Suter and reliever Josh Hader give up five runs in the seventh inning. Hader allowed a two-run
single to Adalberto Mondesi, Lucas Duda’s sacrifice fly and Whit Merrifield’s
RBI single — the first time in 27 games this season Hader has given up more than
one hit in an inning.
“Josh’s velocity was good. Everything was good,” Milwaukee manager Craig Counsell said. “He threw the ball well. They jumped on the first pitch, and
we’ve seen that a lot lately, but he’s been so effective that obviously multiple
hits in an inning is something we haven’t seen. They got him today.”
The Reds certainly didn’t get to Guerra when they faced him on April 17.
Guerra didn’t get the decision in a 2-0 Brewers win, but he shut out the Reds on one hit over 5 2/3 innings, striking out seven and walking three. In his
career, he is 1-1 with a 4.76 ERA against Cincinnati in five games, including
four starts.
Most of the current Reds hitters have only a minimal number of at-bats against Guerra, with Eugenio Suarez going 2-for-3 with a homer.
DeSclafani is 2-2 with a 4.15 ERA in five games against the Brewers, starting four of them, but hasn’t faced them since 2016. Ryan Braun is 2-for-10 (.200)
against him.
