When Mets star shortstop Francisco Lindor led off the first inning with a home run, it already felt like the Rockies were in deep trouble. The Rockies’ track record told us so.
When Lindor led off the eighth with another solo blast, those feelings were confirmed.
The Mets beat the hapless Rockies, 4-2, on Friday night at Citi Field as Colorado continued to make the worst kind of history.
The Rockies lost their sixth straight and slid to 3-26 on the road. And here’s the kicker: Colorado’s overall record is an almost unfathomable 9-48, putting them on pace to go 26-136.
Rockies starter Kyle Freeland, a graduate of Thomas Jefferson High School, gave the Rockies a quality start, but he couldn’t best Regis Jesuit grad David Peterson. The Mets’ lefty flummoxed the Rockies for 5 2/3 innings, surrendering one run on five hits with five strikeouts and one walk. Ryan McMahon’s two-out RBI double to score Thairo Estrada in the fifth was his only major mistake.
Peterson made his sixth consecutive quality start and improved to 4-2 with a 2.69 ERA. In eight home starts this season, the lefty has given up just one home run. In five career starts vs. Colorado, Peterson is 3-1 with a 1.99 ERA.
The Rockies nearly got to Peterson in the third, loading the bases with two outs. Estrada, making his first start for the Rockies after coming off the 60-day injured list, ripped a 107 mph line drive — straight into the glove of the leaping Lindor.
And so it goes for Colorado.
There was a feel-good moment for Colorado. In the seventh, outfielder Sam Hilliard, promoted from Triple-A Albuquerque on Friday, hit a pinch-hit home run off reliever Huascar Brazoban, slicing New York’s lead to 3-2. But Lindor’s homer off reliever Seth Halvorsen in the eighth put the game away.
Beating the Mets at Citi Field is a tough task for any team, but for the Rockies, it felt like an impossibility. The Mets improved to 22-7 at the ballpark in Queens, tied for the best home start in their first 29 games in franchise history. Their .759 home winning percentage is the best in the majors.
Freeland, now 0-8 with a 5.73 ERA, deserved a better fate, but such is his lot in life as a Rockies starter. The lefty entered Friday’s game with just 14 runs of support across his 11 starts, a 2.28 run support average that ranked as the third-lowest in the majors.
Freeland pitched six innings, giving up three runs on seven hits, with no walks and four strikeouts.
Two solo homers burned Freeland. First came Lindor’s first-inning shot. In the fourth, ageless Starling Marte, 36, launched a one-out, 432-foot homer to center.
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