Rockies fall to 0-6 against Braves in 2023 in 3-1 defeat at Coors Field

The Rockies’ deficiencies in 2023 have been drawing plenty of parallels to the club’s expansion team in 1993, and on Tuesday night, the Braves highlighted another bit of similarly ugly molding.

That 1993 club that lost 95 games and was still very much looking for an identity like the ’23 team is now went 0-13 against the Braves, getting outscored 106-50.

Fast forward three decades, and it’s a good thing the Braves were only in the NL West for that ’93 season. First-place Atlanta, a favorite to win its second World Series title in three years, improved to 6-0 against the Rockies this year with a 3-1 win at Coors Field.

“They’ve got a really good lineup, and we’ve got to just keep competing and try to stay in these ballgames with them (like we did tonight),” said rookie outfielder Brenton Doyle, who has never beaten the Braves. “Maybe we’ll come out on top one of these times.”

Colorado has only one chance left to do that this summer, in Wednesday’s series finale against Atlanta.

The last-place Rockies, outscored 57-17 in the six defeats to the Braves this season, are now 1-12 in their last 13 games against Atlanta dating back to last season. Colorado is on pace to finish 60-102, the worst mark in franchise history.

“It’s tough (against the Braves),” said right-hander Peter Lambert, who pitched well but not well enough to beat the current class of the National League. “They’ve won 86 games for a reason. They do a lot of little things really well.”

Atlanta rapped out 15 hits in winning Game 2 of the series, stranding a dozen runners that ended up not mattering because the Colorado offense couldn’t solve Charlie Morton’s curveball or the Braves bullpen. That was despite the home pitching keeping it close after getting blown up in the 14-4 loss in Monday’s series opener.

Colorado mustered only three hits Tuesday, with 12 strikeouts.

“Morton’s a veteran guy who was locating his pitches well (and) were hitting it in the wrong spots,” Doyle said.

After a quiet first, Marcell Ozuna made it 1-0 Braves with his 395-foot homer to right to lead off the second. Eddie Rosario followed that with a triple, then Sean Murphy singled him home as Peter Lambert’s stuff was playing up.

But Colorado got a run back in the bottom of the inning off Morton, making use of Hunter Goodman’s first major-league triple. Harold Castro brought Goodman home with an RBI groundout, cutting the score to 2-1.

Atlanta retook the lead in the fifth, with Austin Riley’s leadoff double followed by Ozuna’s RBI single. Lambert averted further damage in the frame and left with a 3-1 deficit, hoping his teammates could solve Morton and the Braves bullpen.