PHOENIX — There was not a baseball mitt in the world big enough for Jon Gray to hide behind Wednesday night, but the Rockies right-hander tried, snuggling his face into a black Mizuno as his manager made a long walk to the mound.
Gray couldn’t see through the leather, but he knew the score. The Diamondbacks smacked Gray from the jump, clobbering him for three runs on three hits with their first three batters on the way to an 11-8 victory in the National League wild-card game at Chase Field.
“I got outside myself. It stinks when it happens that fast,” Gray said. “A lot of regrets. It’s tough emotionally. I really want to be good for the guys behind me in a big situation, a really big game. It was costly.”
The Rockies’ best shot in a one-game playoff fell to Gray, the 25-year-old flame-thrower from Oklahoma. They drafted him at No. 3 in 2013, then plopped a decade of hope and a desperate return to the postseason on his shoulders.
But there was a reason why Colorado manager Bud Black reluctantly withheld the designation of “ace” from his best pitcher. An ace is fashioned over time, Black insisted, and forged in pressure situations. That moment of significance rushed at Gray early in Wednesday’s game.
“Right away, all hell broke loose,” Black said.
Arizona’s David Peralta ground down Gray in a six-pitch at-bat before singling to center field to lead off. Ketel Marte followed with a sharp line drive to right field.
Then slugger Paul Goldschmidt came to bat.
This was an ideal situation for the Rockies, they thought. They had poured over the matchups and statistics and settled on Gray in large part because he dominated Goldschmidt, a National League MVP candidate, throughout this season. The Arizona first baseman was 0-for-11 with five strikeouts against Gray.
And an elbow injury early in September was hobbling Goldschmidt. He entered the postseason on an 0-for-17 skid. He had hit just one home run in his previous 52 at-bats.
“I was just looking for something to get a run in,” he said.
Goldschmidt blasted Gray’s first pitch, an 80-mph hanging curveball on a rainbow to the left field seats. Arizona trotted to a three-run lead. Then Jake Lamb singled to right and A.J. Pollock doubled to left. Gray only wriggled out of the jam after striking out Daniel Descalso and Jeff Mathis. He needed 33 pitches to get through the first inning.
“I was overthrowing my off-speed stuff,” said Gray. “Everything was up in the zone.”
Gray fell victim to a wild trend start to the postseason. Between the Twins and Yankees, who played Tuesday night, and the Rockies and Diamondbacks, the four starting pitchers in the wild-card games combined to throw just 7 1/3 innings. Arizona’s Zack Greinke got the hook in the fourth after just 3 2/3 innings. Minnesota starter Ervin Santana threw two innings and New York’s Luis Severino recorded just one out.
Black had planned for this contingency — on the off chance that his starter stumbled.
“You really have to have a critical eye,” Black said before the game. “For me, it’s not only stuff, but it’s command. It’s seeing the swings the opponent takes. Is the glove moving a lot? Is he really missing his spots? Are they really locked in and not taking bad swings?”
The Rockies’ skipper is a proponent of measuring a pitcher by his ball-strike ratio. And Gray was throwing strikes. Of the 41 pitches he threw, 33 were in the zone. So Black gave Gray a chance to dig himself out of an early grave, bringing him back for the second inning.
But Peralta singled and Marte tripled him in.
“It doesn’t really happen in the first 20, 25 pitches. I mean, if you get into pitch 30, 40, maybe there are some signs,” Black said. “I’ve seen guys turn it around for whatever reason. They find it, and then they’re cruising. A lot of times you don’t know. But in a game like this, you can’t afford, at times, to let a guy go.”
So Gray got the hook. The shortest start in Colorado’s postseason history. He walked to the dugout, tossed aside his hat and glove, picked up a cup of water, then shuffled to the clubhouse. The Rockies will wait to find their ace.
