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This was a game Jason Jennings would like to forget.
It won't be easy.
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He was buried amid a fifth-inning debacle that allowed the Houston Astros to claim a 13-7 victory against the Colorado Rockies at a chilly Coors Field on Friday night.
Twice the Rockies rallied to erase deficits for Jennings. They tied the score
at 3-3 with a three-run third, and a Charles Johnson home run in the fourth
made it 4-4.
Not that it mattered.
Jennings has enjoyed more success at Coors Field in his career (17-7) than any
pitcher in baseball, but on Friday night he didn't find any comforts at home,
particularly in the fifth inning.
Jennings retired the first two batters in the fifth, then saw the Astros put
together a six-run rally before he could retire the side.
"Frustrating," Jennings said.
While Vinny Castilla was equaling Todd Helton's franchise record by driving
in a run in his ninth consecutive game, Jennings was being pounded for a career-most
10 runs, two shy of the most ever allowed by a Rockies pitcher and only one
fewer than Denny Stark gave up in St. Louis seven nights earlier.
As if backup third baseman Mike Lamb setting a career best with six RBI - five
against Jennings - wasn't enough, right-hander Brad Lidge, a product of Cherry
Creek High, finished off the game for the Astros by striking out all four batters
he faced.
This game, though, turned during that fifth-inning debacle that not only saw
Jennings walk three batters, but throw a pitch in the dirt on ball four to Brad
Ausmus, which Charles Johnson was able to block.
Johnson saw Lance Berkman straying too far off third, and threw the ball into
left field. Berkman and Lamb scored on the play to give the Astros an 8-4 lead,
and two pitches later, Orlando Palmeiro followed with a two-run home run that
put Houston up 10-4.
"I couldn't make the pitch to put them away," said Jennings. "It's
not like I was falling apart. It was a matter of trying to be too fine and pick
too much instead of going after them and being aggressive."
It wasn't pretty.
It was one thing for Jennings to give up three runs in the first, the final
two scoring on a single by Lamb, who also equaled a career best with four hits.
The Rockies at least bounced back to erase that deficit with a three-run rally
of their own in the third. Royce Clayton's two-run home run provided the final
touch.
But when Jennings returned to the mound, he promptly walked Berkman on five
pitches, and two pitches later gave up a run-scoring triple to Lamb.
"It's taxing on a club," Rockies manager Clint Hurdle said. "You
have to be able to stop the other team from time to time."
No argument from Jennings.
"When we scored, you'd like to go out and keep the momentum on our side,
not let them bounce back," Jennings said.
Jennings did strand Lamb on third, needing only six pitches to get groundball
outs from Ausmus, Palmeiro and Astros pitcher Brandon Duckworth.
But after Johnson's home run tied the score in the bottom of the fourth, the
Astros had that six-run fifth, the 13th time in Jennings career he has been
the victim of a four-run or bigger inning.
It's the second time this season. He allowed seven runs in the fourth at Arizona
on April 7. And it's the second time in two career starts against the Astros.
He gave up six runs in the third inning of last year's season opener at Minute
Maid Park.
"I know he's giving his best effort, but it's obvious he's one pitcher
when he has the ball down in the zone and another when the ball is up in the
zone," Hurdle said.
And he was "another" in that fiasco of a fifth, in which he walked
Jeff Bagwell on a 3-2 pitch and saw Ausmus battle back from an 0-2 count to
draw his walk.
"I couldn't make the pitch to put them away," Jennings said. "I
tried to pick a little too much with two strikes."