Colorado Rockies blank San Francisco Giants 5-0 at Coors Field – MLB News
Colorado Rockies had a fantastic game on Sunday, May 19, 2013, when they blanked the San Francisco Giants and won 5-0 at the Coors Field.
The victory brought the Rockies at par with the Giants in the National League West and just a game away from the current leaders of the pack, Arizona Diamondbacks. It was also a rare strong show by the Rockies
against the San Francisco ballclub, who have traditionally overwhelmed the hosts just about every time.
The key feature of the game was the phenomenal pitching by Juan Nicasio, who recorded his fourth win for the season. During the six innings that he threw, there was very little that the San Francisco batters
could do.
Walt Weiss, the manager of the Rockies was pleased by the performance his team has shown off late. The first year manager knows that the group of teams the Rockies are playing with are tough and it is never going
to be easy. He took heart in the fact that the team has shown plenty of fight in the recent times and has made some comebacks in a season that is still relatively young.
"You're going to get beat up quite a bit in this league, but I have often said our guys will do what they did the last three days," Weiss said. "When it looks like they start to slide, they turn it around. They've
done it a handful of times already this year. That's a great trait to have."
Much of the success that Juan got in the game can be attributed to the catcher, Yorvit Torrealba, who guided him all the way and made him pitch the right stuff as per the situation. He had told the pitcher in
the pre-game meeting to take his lead.
"Whatever I put down, you throw." Torrealba said.
The idea certainly paid off and Nicasio was able to go scoreless against one of the more feared batting units in all of Major League.
The catcher felt that the Giants’ hitters were not certain of what to expect and that helped. He said that his primary goal was to get the pitcher through five or six games, perhaps seven and not beyond.
"They didn't know what to expect," Torrealba said. "They've got good hitters, but to me, I just focused on Juan getting through five, through six, maybe through seven."
The pitcher himself said that he did not experiment a great deal and followed what the catcher signalled to him.
"He told me, 'Throw a slider, down,'" Nicasio said. "I said, 'OK, I'll throw a slider, down.'"
The overall result will certainly please the Rockies as they are gaining the momentum that they had lost after some early good work. Should they continue to perform in the same manner, they are certainly going
to give some of the bigger names a very tough time.
Tags: