On a Tuesday night when pitchers thrived at Coors Field, the margin for error was razor-thin.
Rockies right-hander Peter Lambert lived that reality in a 3-1 loss to the Reds in front of an announced crowd of 20,611. The game took just 2 hours, 5 minutes.
Pitching in relief in the seventh, Lambert gave up a two-out walk to Tyler Stephenson, followed by a two-run, first-pitch homer to center by Nick Senzel to give Cincinnati a 2-1 lead.
“Peter is throwing the ball well,” manager Bud Black said. “If Peter were to have an at-bat back, it would be that two-out walk.”
The Reds tacked on a bonus run in the eighth off of Justin Lawrence, who came into the game having given up no earned runs in 15 of his 18 appearances. Curt Casali drew a one-out walk, advanced to second on Jonathan India’s groundout and scored on Matt McClain’s single to center.
The contrast between the game’s two starting pitchers was striking and compelling. Reds left-hander Brandon Williamson made his big-league debut at age 25. Rockies right-hander Chase Anderson, 35, pitched in his 202nd game and made his 184th start.
The odd couple put on quite an exhibition.
Anderson gave the Rockies everything they could have hoped for when they claimed him off waivers to prop up their injury-riddled rotation.
“Overall, I felt really good on the mound,” Anderson said. “The end result wasn’t great because we didn’t win the game, so that’s frustrating.”
Making his first start of the season — he made two relief appearances for Tampa Bay earlier this month — Anderson blanked the Reds for five innings, giving up just one hit, a leadoff single to Wil Myers in the third. Anderson struck out three and walked one.
Anderson was the first starter since Antonio Senzatela on April 6, 2017, against Milwaukee, to pitch five scoreless frames in his Rockies debut, and the first in franchise history to do so while allowing just two baserunners.
Anderson, who was on a pitch count, threw 59 pitches (35 for strikes). He figures he can go a bit deeper into the game in his next start.
“I think with my fastball command, I was getting a little winded and my legs were getting a little bit tired in that fifth inning,” Anderson said. “My fastball was kind of spraying up and away. I told them that was because I hadn’t pitched in this thin air in a long time.”
Anderson added that he hopes to get up to 80-85 pitches in his next start, “and maybe more if I get rolling.”
Williamson, with his personal cheering section of about 30 friends and family in attendance, was terrific in his debut. He struck out six, walked two and gave up just two hits over his 5 2/3 innings.
His one big mistake was leaving a 1-2 fastball over the plate that Ezequiel Tovar drove into the right-field seats in the sixth inning for his third home run. Tovar was in an awful funk coming into the at-bat, having gone 0 for 8 with seven strikeouts.
“He had a good fastball, low 90s, but it got on guys a little bit,” Black said. “The words from the guys was that in the box, the (fastball) had a little bit of giddy-up at the end. He had a nice little slider that got in on our righties and went away from our lefties.
“He threw well. That was a good showing for a guy in his major league debut.”
The Reds and Rockies play the third game of their series on Wednesday afternoon at Coors.
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