After their hot start, where did it all go wrong for the Rockies?

The Colorado Rockies finally ended their weeklong losing streak, winning on Monday night against the Arizona Diamondbacks. That victory, as well as last night’s win, came after losing seven straight games to the Houston Astros and the Los Angeles Dodgers.

During that losing span, the Rockies were outscored 47-23. Fans shouldn’t be surprised from that outcome with the signs coming the week before. It was in two specific games at certain moments we should’ve seen this horrendous week come.

On Aug. 12, the Rockies were playing the D-Backs to win the series and the final score was 13-7 in favor of Arizona. Heading into the seventh inning, the Rox were tied 5-5. Then, Arizona scored eight runs in one inning, and it all started with Nolan Arenado not making a classic bare-handed play with the bases loaded with one out.

One run turned into eight, and although Colorado scored two more runs in the eighth inning, it wasn’t enough to win the game and win the series. This was the first sign of trouble for the team.

With runners in scoring position, the Rockies went a shocking 3-for-13 and had a total of 13 left on base. Arenado could have easily been assessed an error on that play in the seventh. It was that shaky defense that got into the head of starting pitching and the bullpen.

They can’t pitch confidently if their defense can’t help them out of tricky situations and that was clearly seen during that seven-game losing streak. Pitching had no confidence in themselves or had the assurance that the defense behind them will make the plays.

Their next opponent was a familiar pitching foe, Lance Lynn for the Texas Rangers. As fans might remember, he only gave up three hits on Opening Day. On the season, Lynn has a 1.59 earned run average, and has struck out 50 in just during 45 innings pitched. It’s no wonder why he is considered to win the American League Cy Young Award this year, and he proved it again Aug. 14.

That day, he pitched a complete game in dominant form, only giving up one earned run and two hits in nine innings. This game shutdown the offense and the hitters couldn’t help out the pitching staff, which had a great day.

Castellani, Hoffman, Bard and Diaz all gave winning contributions, holding the Rangers to three runs on six hits. Offensively, the stats that stand out from that game are again RISP and LOB. The Rockies went 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position and had two runners left on base. Those stat lines don’t help a Trevor Story, Nolan Arenado or Charlie Blackmon gain confidence before their toughest week on the 60-game schedule and the offense struggled to give the Rockies any strong lead against the Astros and Dodgers.

In order to be the best, you have to beat the best and simply put, the Rockies are not the best. They lost to the best two teams poised a strong World Series run and Colorado was tested and they failed miserably. The Rockies will look to win their first series since the played the Seattle Mariners in the beginning of August. Baseball is a game of ups and downs and the next two games against the D-backs will show fans if the Rockies losing streak was a complete slump or if it shined a light on the greatest fears fans have.