Rockies’ struggling Nolan Arenado staying in heart of order despite sore shoulder

Rock­ies man­ag­er Bud Black has no inten­tion of mov­ing Nolan Are­na­do out of the heart of the order.

Yes, Arenado’s left shoul­der is aching and he was bat­ting just .256, with a .751 OPS (well below his career mark of .891) enter­ing Fri­day night’s game against the Dodgers at Coors Field. But Black hit Are­na­do third Fri­day night and Are­na­do has bat­ted either third or fourth in the line­up every game he’s start­ed this season.

“You want your best hit­ters to get the most at-bats, and that’s how we are lin­ing it up,” Black said. “There’s real­ly nobody, right now, real­ly hot. (Raimel) Tapia is hold­ing his own, lead­ing off, and I think he’s a good fit at the top of the line­up. But I don’t think there is any mag­ic line­up or move­ment of line­up that will real­ly get any­body going.”

Are­na­do has been bat­ting for a decent aver­age late­ly, hit­ting safe­ly in 16 of his last 20 games with a .307 aver­age, six dou­bles and nine RBIs. He has eight home runs but just one since Aug. 20. The third base­man has said that his sore shoul­der does not allow him to fol­low through as he nor­mal­ly does.

Spe­cial K. Black has a great appre­ci­a­tion for Dodgers lefty Clay­ton Ker­shaw, who’s sched­uled to start Sat­ur­day night’s game at Coors Field. Black, after all, was a left-hand­ed pitch­er for parts of 15 big-league seasons.

He’s seen Ker­shaw evolve from a young pow­er pitch­er to a more nuanced vet­er­an. This sea­son, Ker­shaw (5–2, 2.28 ERA), is once again per­form­ing like one of the best pitch­ers in the game.

“The fast­ball looks a lit­tle crisper, and so does the slid­er,” Black said. “It looks a lit­tle crisper, so I think there’s been maybe just a lit­tle uptick in his over­all stuff. He’s always been able to locate the ball, and the last num­ber of years I think we’ve seen him do that very well.”

Kershaw’s fast­ball is com­ing to the plate between 91 and 93 mph, two to three ticks faster than it was each of the past two years.

Foot­notes. Boston acquired minor league right-hand­ed reliev­er Jacob Wal­lace from the Rock­ies on Fri­day, com­plet­ing the Aug. 31 trade for out­field­er Kevin Pil­lar. Wal­lace was select­ed by the Rock­ies in the third round of the 2019 draft. … Black said that right-hand­ed reliev­ers Mychal Givens and Yen­cy Almonte have been deal­ing with shoul­der sore­ness, which is the rea­son why they have not been used late­ly. Black, how­ev­er, said that Givens would be avail­able Fri­day night if needed.

On Deck
Dodgers LHP Clay­ton Ker­shaw
(5–2, 2.28 ERA) at RHP Chi Chi Gon­za­lez (0–1, 8.68)
6:10 p.m. Sat­ur­day, Coors Field
TV: AT&T SportsNet
Radio: KOA 850 AM/94.1 AM

Ker­shaw owns the Rock­ies, going 23–8 with a 3.28 ERA in 42 starts against them, with a 1.15 WHIP and an aver­age of 9.72 strike­outs per game. But he has strug­gled at Coors Field, at least in rel­a­tive terms, going 10–5 with 4.26 ERA and a 1.286 WHIP in 22 starts. He last pitched Mon­day against the Padres, allow­ing three earned runs on five hits over 6 1/3 innings and get­ting charged with his sec­ond loss of the sea­son. He struck out nine, with no walks, while throw­ing a sea­son-high 99 pitch­es. Gon­za­lez, who’s essen­tial­ly replac­ing the injured Jon Gray in the rota­tion, is 0–1 in two starts this sea­son, giv­ing up sev­en runs in just 3 1/3 innings. In two relief appear­ances, he’s giv­en up two runs across six innings. Gon­za­lez fared well against the Dodgers last sea­son, going 1–0 with a 2.66 ERA in four games (three starts).

Trend­ing: The Dodgers entered Friday’s game hav­ing home­red in 41 of their first 51 games this year. The Dodgers’ 95 home runs lead the majors, ahead of the Yan­kees (88) and the Padres (85). Accord­ing to STATS LLC, there have only been sev­en NL teams that have led the majors in homers since the des­ig­nat­ed hit­ter was first used in 1973.

At issue: Right-hand­ed reliev­er Car­los Estevez is strug­gling might­i­ly. He’s been scored upon in five of his last six appear­ances, giv­ing up 12 runs over just four innings (27.00 ERA). For the sea­son, left-han­ders are hit­ting .302 against him, while right-han­ders are bat­ting .346.

Pitch­ing Probables
Sun­day: Dodgers RHP Tony Gon­solin (1–1, 1.51) at Rock­ies RHP Anto­nio Sen­za­tela (4–2, 3.30), 1:10 p.m., ATTRM
Mon­day: Rock­ies RHP Ger­man Mar­quez (2–6, 4.33) at Giants LHP Drew Smy­ly (0–0, 3.94), 7:45 p.m., ATTRM
Tues­day: Rock­ies LHP Kyle Free­land (2–2, 3.75) at Giants LHP Tyler Ander­son (2–3, 5.06), 7:45 p.m, ATTRM

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