PHOENIX -- Now 76 games into the season, the D-backs are right back where they started -- sitting at .500 (38-38) with a front office trying to decide whether they’re contenders who will add at the July 31 Trade Deadline or not.

Thursday’s 6-4 loss to the Rockies in 10 innings might represent peak frustration for the D-backs.

• Box score

Coming off a 7-3 East Coast road trip, it looked like the D-backs were in a good position to make a move with a nine-game homestand ahead against division foes the Rockies, Giants and Dodgers before wrapping up the first half with rematches against those teams.

But the Rockies dragged the D-backs back to .500 with a three-game sweep. It was Colorado’s eighth straight win against Arizona, and the Rox have won 18 of their past 22 against the D-backs.

“I know we’re .500 right now, and that’s a frustrating record,” D-backs manager Torey Lovullo said. “We haven’t played our best baseball. There’s a lot more in there. I know that group that’s sitting in that clubhouse now is frustrated, and they feel the same way as I do. When I say we haven’t played our best baseball, it’s because we’re making some mistakes that are very obvious. We’re trying to shore that up every day. When we play a good baseball game, good things happen.”

Adding to the frustration was the fact that this was a game the D-backs thought they had locked up -- one that could have really provided them a boost as they rallied for three runs in the sixth inning to take a 4-3 lead. Christian Walker pinch-hit for starter Robbie Ray, who fanned nine in six frames, and tied the game with a two-run homer. David Peralta then put Arizona up with an RBI single.

The D-backs turned things over to closer Greg Holland, who was 11-for-12 in save opportunities.

Of course, there haven’t been many save situations lately, because Arizona's recent wins were by bigger margins; therefore, Holland had not been used since June 12, when he closed out a 2-0 win in Philadelphia.

Whether it was the layoff or just one of those games that occasionally happens to even the best of pitchers, Holland struggled with his command. After easily retiring Chris Iannetta to open the ninth, he allowed two straight walks before pinch-hitter Tony Wolters blooped the game-tying hit into right field.

“I blame myself for that, believe it or not,” Lovullo said. “He’s been six, seven days down with the off-day. We’ve got to find a way to keep him sharp and keep him in baseball games. There [has] been no traditional closer usage in those games. That’s on me. He went out there and tried to gut it out and did all that he could. The command issue he showed today is a non-issue. I feel like if we had chosen a different path over the past few games and gotten him a look in some of these games, we’d have had a different outcome. I’ll take that hit for sure.”

Holland was having none of that.

“I’m not going to use that as an excuse,” Holland said. “I felt fine warming up, got the first guy out quick, and then for whatever reason, just lost the feel for the strike zone. That’s kind of the nature of the beast when you’re a reliever -- it’s hard to get regular work sometimes. That doesn’t give me an excuse to throw three or four balls to the backstop and walk two guys.”

And Holland knew this was a particularly bad time to have it happen.

“That was kind of one of those games where we should have won, we needed to win and I let it slip away from us there,” Holland said. “So I take responsibility for that.”

The D-backs now need to find a way to rebound starting Friday night against the last-place Giants before the first-place Dodgers come to town. The boulder has fallen down to the bottom of the .500 mountain, and they’ll have to begin pushing it back up.

“We don’t have anything to do but find a way out of these circumstances that we’re walking through,” Lovullo said. “Nothing we did today, none of the pitches we threw or the at-bats that we had are going to help us win a game tomorrow. We’ve got to keep pounding on. This one was tough, I’m not going to lie.”

Good news for Nick

On the bright side, X-rays taken of shortstop Nick Ahmed’s left hand came back negative, and the team expects him to be able to play possibly as soon as Friday.

Ahmed was hit in the hand by a Jeff Hoffman pitch in the third inning, and he was removed from the game in the fifth.