After exploding offensively in the first game of their six-game road trip, the Colorado Rockies offense has been missing in action. After being held to just one run on Monday by Aaron Nola, it was Ranger Suárez’s turn to handcuff the Rockies offense as they lost their fourth straight game 5-0.

It was a dominant and effective performance for the 28-year-old Venezuelan lefty as Suárez tossed a complete game shutout, the second of his career, and the fourth all-time by a Phillie against the Rockies. On 112 pitches, Suárez scattered seven hits while striking out seven and allowing just one walk. He threw 79 strikes and induced 12 ground balls to handily keep the Rockies in place to improve the Phillies to 10-8 on the season.

He got plenty of run support after J.T. Realmuto hit his third home run of the year, a two-run shot in the first inning to score Trea Turner who had reached via a throwing error from Ezequiel Tovar. In the sixth inning, the Phillies added another run after Turner and Bryce Harper hit back-to-back doubles. The death blow came in the eighth inning when Harper belted a two-run shot against reliever Tyler Kinley for his fourth home run of the season. The Phillies were outhit by the Rockies 7-6, but the two home runs and Harper’s 2-for-4 performance were enough to get the job done.

The Rockies got another solid outing from their starting pitcher as Austin Gomber allowed three runs, one earned, on five hits with four strikeouts and no walks in 5 1/3 innings. Unfortunately, the offense was unable to string anything together to get runs across as they have now scored just one run in their last three games. All seven of the Rockies’ hits were singles, as the one hit that would have been a double resulted in Elehuris Montero being thrown out at second base. Ryan McMahon led the pack with two hits, and only three players in the lineup didn’t get a hit.

“It’s tough, we’ve got a lot of guys cutting their teeth, just young players,” manager Bud Black said in his postgame interview, “and they’re seeing Berrios, they’re seeing Nola, and tonight they saw Suárez who pitched really well. This is experienced firsthand against Major League pitching, so our guys will get better from it. You know, Gomby hung in there, we just couldn’t break through, we got a few hits but couldn’t bunch them together.”

Up next

In the rubber match the Rockies will send out Ryan Feltner to face off against another left-hander in Cristopher Sánchez. Feltner tossed five innings in his victory over the Blue Jays last Friday, the Rockies only win during the road trip. Sánchez makes his fourth start on the heels of an excellent outing in which he allowed one run on four hits over six innings against the Pittsburgh Pirates.