Colorado
Rockies are playing with fire with high walk rate
SAN DIEGO — Walks haunt, and late-game walks haunt absolutely.
Usually.
The Rockies’ 5-4 win over the Padres on Monday night at Petco Park was the exception. They pulled off the victory despite issuing 11 walks, only the third win in franchise history when they walked 11 or more. It also happened on May 12, 1995, at Florida and on June 5, 1999, vs. Milwaukee.
Monday night, the late-game relief trio of Jake Bird (two walks), Justin Lawrence (three) and Jalen Beeks (three) combined for eight walks over the final 3 1/3 innings. The Rockies played with fire but somehow survived.
There are few things manager Bud Black hates more than walks, and he’s already seen a lot this season. Despite daily preaching by pitching coach Darryl Scott, bullpen coach Reid Cornelius and Black, the free passes keep piling up. Entering Tuesday night’s game against the Padres, Colorado had walked 161 batters for an average of 4.03 walks per nine innings. Only the Mets (4.55), Marlins (4.30) and Astros (4.08) have been worse.
With that in mind, I asked Black, somewhat facetiously, if walks can be contagious. After all, hitting is said to be infectious in a dugout. Perhaps the tendency to walk hitters spreads through the bullpen?
“I don’t know whether it goes from one guy to the next,” Black said. “But if you start walking guys as an individual, it can lead to more. I hate to say it, but it can. Last night that might have been the case. So the answer can be yes — to each individual.”
I took my theory to Lawrence. Like Black, he dismissed my nutty idea of walks spreading from pitcher to pitcher, but he said mind games definitely ramp up when a pitcher starts throwing more balls than strikes.
“Once it gets to a certain point, where you walk two guys in an inning, or you walk a guy and you throw three balls to the next guy, you start to press a little bit,” said Lawrence, whose 6.5 walks per nine are the second-highest on the team behind right-hander Tyler Kinley (6.6).
“I think what happens is that you start thinking, ‘Oh, man, I have to throw a strike right here,’ instead of just going out there and making your pitch, being an athlete and trusting your process,” Lawrence said. “What you have to do, or think, is ‘Hey, if I walk this guy, I know I can get back in the zone and get out of the jam.’ ”
When asked if the pressure of the situation matters — late game, close game, momentum shifts — Lawrence said it doesn’t, at least not for him.
“I’ve been around long enough and pitched enough innings to know that it’s me vs. the hitter, not me vs. the score or the inning,” he said. “It’s my best stuff against his best swing, regardless of the game situation. It’s a matter of executing.”
Still, Lawrence acknowledged that walks can snowball on a pitcher as they did Monday night.
“It can happen, but I think that’s what separates (relievers) in this game is handling it,” he said. “You have to believe that, no matter what, you can get the next batter. Maybe one pitch gets you a double play and gets you out of trouble.”
Lawrence is well aware of Black’s contempt for bases on balls.
“Yeah, I know he does, but it’s a long season and you’re going to have rough stretches like last night,” Lawrence said. “But we’re going to clean it up.”
They’d better. Because too many games like Monday’s game will make the Rockies’ long season feel like an eternity.
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Colorado
Avalanche discipline, power play falters, Central Division lead shrinks in 5-2 loss to Wild
The Colorado Avalanche had a chance Thursday night to regain some real separation between them and the Minnesota Wild.
It didn’t happen, and special teams were again an issue.
Minnesota’s Joel Eriksson Ek scored a pair of power-play goals, while the Avalanche took too many penalties and did not convert its chances with the extra man in a 5-2 loss at Ball Arena. The Wild scored on two of six power plays, both in the second period, then added a shorthanded goal into an empty net for good measure.
“We took six (penalties). Six is too many, especially against a power play like theirs,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “We had a slow start to the second and then just kind of started getting going, then took a bunch of penalties and kind of took the momentum away and swung it back in their favor again.”
Mackenzie Blackwood was excellent early in this contest and stopped 31 of 34 shots for the Avs in his first start since the Olympic break. Colorado, which went 0-for-3 on the power play, has not scored an extra-man goal in back-to-back games since Dec. 31 and Jan. 3. The Avs are 2-for-31 with the man advantage since Jan. 16, and at 15.1% are last in the NHL.
The Wild are now just five points behind the Avs in the Central Division, though Colorado has two games in hand. Filip Gustavsson made 44 saves for the visitors.
“I think we crated enough chances to win the hockey game,” Bednar said. “We give up the (second power-play goal) and that’s the difference in the hockey game for me. We had a chance (on the power play) … we score and it’s a tie game. We haven’t had an easy time capitalizing on some of our chances that we created in the last month.
“I’d like to see that turn around a little bit.”
Minnesota took advantage of three penalties on Colorado in a span of 53 seconds to take the lead with 2:23 left in the second period. Captain Gabe Landeskog was sent to the box for elbowing Eriksson Ek away from the play at 14:15 and Valeri Nichushkin was called for cross-checking at 15:04.
That gave the Wild a 5-on-3, but it went from bad to worse in a hurry for the home side. Brock Nelson won the 3-on-5 in his own end, but Brent Burns’ backhanded attempt to clear the puck out of the zone went into the stands for a delay of game.
Minnesota had a 5-on-3 for 1:56, which Colorado successfully killed off, but because Burns’ two minutes didn’t start until Landeskog’s penalty ended, there was more 5-on-4 time and Eriksson Ek scored his second of the night. The Swedish Olympian was trying to send a cross-crease pass to Kirill Kaprizov, but it hit the inside of Blackwood’s right leg and pinballed across the goal line.
Because of the extended penalty time, both Eriksson Ek and Boldy officially logged a shift of more than four minutes, leading to that goal.
“I’m not a big fan of the penalties we took, necessarily,” Landeskog said. “Obviously, mine is a penalty. Val, I felt like he was protecting himself and Burns, that’s a penalty. There’s nothing to argue about there. But yeah, that tilts the ice for sure and just gives them unnecessary momentum.
“So yeah, undisciplined and we’ve got to be better there for sure.”
Eriksson Ek put Minnesota in front at 7:48 of the second period. Cale Makar was called for slashing when his one-handed swipe while Yakov Trenin was attempting to shoot from the left wing. Trenin’s stick broke, so Makar went to the box.
Blackwood made the initial save on Matt Boldy’s shot from the high slot, but Eriksson Ek was there near the left post to clean up the rebound.
Martin Necas continued his hot run with a goal to even the score at 13:30 of the middle frame. Nathan MacKinnon picked up the puck in his own zone and carried it into the offensive end. He left a drop pass for Necas near the right point and then played fullback, driving Wild defenseman Daemon Hunt back to give Necas space and then providing a screen on a lethal wrist shot from his Czech linemate.
That was Necas’ 24th goal of the season. He added a second goal in the final minute after the Wild had built a three-goal advantage to give him 25 on the season.
It’s also three in two games since the Olympic break. Necas had three goals and eight points in five games for Czechia at the Olympics in Milan, equaling his country’s record for points at the event.
MacKinnon missed Colorado’s first game back on Wednesday because of maintenance. He actually slipped to third in the NHL scoring race as of Thursday morning, in part because Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov has now has 53 points in his past 23 games to track down MacKinnon and Edmonton’s Connor McDavid to make it a three-man race for the Art Ross Trophy.
McDavid (five times) and Kucherov (three) have combined to win the Art Ross in eight of the past nine years. MacKinnon has never won it, but has finished second each of the past two seasons.
Minnesota scored a second goal off a Colorado player to make it a 3-1 game and then added two empty-net tallies around Necas’ second goal to seal the Wild’s sixth win in a row.
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Late Thursday morning, a house fire spreading into the nearby woods in Colorado’s Golden Gate Canyon prompted officials to issue a pre-evacuation order to nearby residents. Firefighters have since brought the blaze under control.
According to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, a house fire broke out around 11:30 a.m. in the 10600 block of Ralston Creek Road in Golden Gate Canyon, located around 25 miles west of Denver. The fire then began to spread into the nearby trees and grass.
Multiple fire units quickly responded to the scene, and the JCSO issued a pre-evacuation notice to all residents within a three-mile radius, warning them to be prepared to leave at a moment’s notice.
At 12:34 p.m., the sheriff’s office announced that the fire is no longer spreading and the burn area has been contained to less than an acre. A photo shared by JCSO shows a structure nearly completely destroyed by the fire.
Pre-evacuation orders were lifted around 1 p.m.
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