Rockies 3, Cubs 0: The Vanishing Offense

When Kris Bryant doubled to lead off the seventh inning to break up German Marquez’ no-hit bid, it left the Dodgers’ Hideo Nomo as the only pitcher to throw a no-hitter at Coors Field. He did it September 17, 1996 and his team won 9-0. It is the nature of Coors Field that there was a no-hitter there nine years before a 1-0 game happened at the mile-high altitude (July 9, 2005).

I am telling you all this because there certainly isn’t anything resembling a Cubs highlight from their 3-0, rain-delayed loss to the Rockies Wednesday afternoon.

Here is the Cubs’ only real offensive highlight of the day, Bryant’s double that broke up the no-no [VIDEO].

The Rockies’ first run of the day scored in part due to an error by Javier Baez. The Cubs had set up in a shift with a runner on first and Carlos Gonzalez up. CarGo hit a ground ball to Baez, who had to wait for Tommy La Stella to get into position at second base for a force play.

Javy either could have waited for TLS (looked like he would have made it in time) or taken a sure out at first. Instead, it looked like Javy started heading toward second before he had the ball, and he fumbled it, and both runners were safe.

A walk loaded the bases and a sacrifice fly scored the run.

Beyond that, Kyle Hendricks threw really well, as did Marquez. The first run was unearned and that’s all the Rockies had until they got a pair of runners on second and third with two out in the seventh. By then Hendricks had been lifted for Carl Edwards Jr., and Marquez sliced a single down the left-field line, scoring both runs. It was Marquez’ first major-league hit.

The Cubs did have a chance to get back in the game. They put runners on second and third and two out in the eighth on singles by TLS and Ben Zobrist and an infield out, but Jon Jay grounded out to Nolan Arenado to end that threat.

Bryant made a couple of nice defensive plays to keep the game close early. Here’s a barehanded play from the second inning [VIDEO].

And here’s a diving catch he made to rob Arenado in the sixth [VIDEO].

All for naught when the Cubs simply could not get any offense going against Marquez and their closer Greg Holland. The Cubs seem to be alternating really good offensive performances with really pathetic ones. They haven’t been able to get any consistent offense going. Give Marquez credit, he’s got really good stuff and somewhere down the road he’s going to be pretty good, despite not-so-great results coming into this game.

Mercifully, this was the quickest Cubs game of the season at two hours, 14 minutes. It might as well have been rained out; too bad the rain held off.

The Cubs will be on their way to St. Louis not long after I post this. They get to spend their off day Thursday in St. Louis, something they are probably not excited about considering that they spent nearly a week there for the season-opening series. (Yes, a week. They arrived Friday, March 31 after their exhibition game in Houston and didn’t leave until late Thursday, April 6 due to a rainout.) At this writing the Cubs do not have a starting pitcher listed for any of the games in the Cardinals series. It’s quite possible that Eddie Butler will be recalled from Triple-A Iowa to start on Friday. Mike Leake will start for the Cardinals to begin that series.

Perhaps between now and Friday the Cubs can locate some offensive consistency.