Márquez trending upward by finding balance

CHICAGO -- Germán Márquez has a hot-blooded competitor’s nature, but recent lessons have reinforced that he’s often better served by keeping a cool head.

Márquez had to be as cool as the breeze that blew toward the outfield at Wrigley Field on Friday afternoon. The Cubs’ Zach McKinstry led off the first inning with a triple into the center-field ivy, and Ian Happ immediately drove him in with an RBI single.

But Márquez made only one other mistake -- a breaking ball for McKinstry’s fifth-inning home run -- in his seven innings of the Rockies’ 2-1 loss. It was Márquez’s ninth quality start in his last 12 outings.

This year has been at times maddening for Márquez, who has had his share of good games but also dealt with a poor beginning and then periodic flare-ups. But it’s evaluation, not emotion, that will allow the 27-year-old right-hander to take the lessons he needs into next season. Márquez’s ERA sits at 5.14, but the sequences that kept the Cubs’ bats under control for much of the contest demonstrate that the pitcher who was an All-Star last season is still in there.

“My mindset was to keep the ball down,” said Márquez, who has another season plus a club option year on his contract. “[McKinstry] is an aggressive hitter. I missed a couple pitches, but I feel good about my outing.

“After that homer, I got angry but I went back to my mindset -- keep the ball down and keep working.”

Márquez, who is expected to lead Colorado’s staff alongside Kyle Freeland at the start of next season, struck out four and held the Cubs to six hits, two walks and a hit batter. He was bested by Cubs starter Marcus Stroman, who held the Rockies hitless until Ryan McMahon’s two-out home run to center field in the sixth inning. Stroman yielded just three hits in seven frames.

“[Márquez] threw well -- he had to,” Rockies manager Bud Black said. “Their guy was real good. It was a pitchers’ duel today, even in good conditions to hit. But Germán settled in with the breaking ball, the slider and the curve.”

Márquez could do nothing about the rest.

“It’s been tough,” said McMahon, who entered the game hitting .308 with three home runs and four RBIs in his last seven games. “We haven’t gotten ‘Marqee’ the run support that he’s needed the last couple of times he’s pitched really well. He kept us in it, did a great job.

“When [Stroman] is moving the ball around like that, it’s tough. I don’t think we went up there and just threw away at-bats.”

Márquez’s outing represented a rebound from his last, when he gave up nine runs on seven hits in four innings of a 13-10 Rockies win over the D-backs. But how Márquez handled that one is an example of the balance he’s learning to show in his self-evaluation.

In the outing against Arizona, the Rockies handed Márquez an 8-1 lead in the bottom of the fifth at Coors Field. But he lost his location, and the nine runs charged to him came with no outs in the frame. That game was so certifiably weird that it didn’t end up as a loss, because catcher Elias Díaz won it with a walk-off three-run homer.

By Friday, Márquez understood that nothing that happened against the D-backs was relevant against the Cubs.

“It was just one inning, so forget about it,” Márquez said. “This was another game.”