For the second consecutive day, the Rockies dropped Game 1 of a doubleheader, this time to the St. Albert Tigers, when they let a 3-0 lead slip away in a 5th inning that saw the Tigers put up five of their six total hits in the contest.
Steven Latos (2-1) suffered his first loss of the season when the Tigers offense suddenly came to life in the 5th following four brilliant innings from the Rockies right-hander. A parade of seeing-eye singles with only one extra base hit and the only Rockies error of the game was all the Tigers would need to jump out to a 5-3 lead that would ultimately hold up. Tyson Kilbreath stranded two runners in his one inning of relief to give the Rockies offense a chance to claw back, but apart from Luke Wilson’s double in the 6th inning the Rockies offense had gone quiet.
Wilson continued his torrid June by chipping in a single and a double and scoring a run in this one. He pushed his team leading average up to .381 on the season, but he’s slashing a ridiculous .467/.556/.533 so far this month as the 19-year old has entered full break out mode just over halfway through the season.
Rockies infielder Chris Cook has begun showing signs of life at the plate and that continued during this game, as he was able to tally two hits himself and tack on two RBI to his season total. Cook had started the season 0 for his first 12 at-bats before registering his first knock on June 15th against Red Deer. Since that game he is slashing .273/.429/.364 and has looked much more comfortable at the plate, hopefully indicating there is more to come from his left-handed bat down the stretch!
The Rockies record falls to 6-5 with the loss, and they find themselves trying to salvage a split this afternoon before hitting the road to return to Calgary and wrapping up the Edmonton road trip for 2023.
