DENVER -- Rockies right-handed pitcher Jon Gray and left fielder Raimel Tapia were having a nice Wednesday until their evenings -- physically and literally -- ran into a padded steel pole.

Gray had mostly shut down the Cubs, but found himself with loaded bases and two out in the fifth. When Patrick Wisdom, already with two hits, launched a fly ball to the left-field fence, Gray needed Tapia’s help.

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Tapia, who had supported Gray with doubles in his first two at-bats, leaped and had the ball in his glove. But the glove hit the stanchion, the ball popped free and three runs scored. That was enough to send Gray and the Rockies -- who stopped hitting after a four-hit, two-run first inning -- to a 3-2 defeat.

The result was one the Rockies have seen too often -- a starter pitching with a margin for error as thin as the Mile High air, misfortune beyond normal human control (had Tapia bumped the chain-link fence, holding on would have been easier), and an offense that often doesn’t hit. Usually they do well in their home park (34-21 on the season), but the Rockies did little offensively after the first inning.

Not Gray -- not even Wisdom, for that matter -- thought Gray’s slider was hit that well, but it carried at Coors and, for the Rockies, went to the exact wrong point.

"When he hit it, I didn't think he got it all, but it carried,” Gray said. “[Tapia] got there, but I didn't see the slow-mo or the replay or anything. I know that he thought he had it for a second or so. He's an amazing outfielder. He's always making plays for me.

“It's just kind of an unfortunate thing. But then again, that falls on me. He's doing his thing out there."

Wisdom was thankful for the mountain air.

“I didn't square it up flush like a no-doubter, but I knew we were in Colorado,” he said. “I knew some weird things can happen.”

Gray struck out six in six innings, staying mostly with his slider but using the curve to put away a couple of the K’s. He pitched out of trouble in the second and fourth innings. With two down in the fifth, Rafael Ortega and Willson Contreras singled, and Gray issued his only walk, to Ian Happ, setting the stage for Wisdom.

Gray said he wished he would have used a fastball against Wisdom, or had the slider run off the plate.

“It’s one of those outings that I’m OK with, but it’s also going to fuel me for the next one,” Gray said.

The play overshadowed a good beginning from Tapia, who doubled in the first and second. Tapia had missed a couple of weekend games with a right big toe injury, and the hitting was welcome. However, Cubs starter Alec Mills kept the Rockies off balance for the rest of his six innings, and the Rockies were as unsuccessful against the bullpen.

“I saw an assortment of offspeed pitches with a sneaky fastball that he moved to both sides of the plate,” Rockies manager Bud Black said. “We just couldn’t get the barrel on it.

“We just couldn’t seem to solve him after the first inning.”

Then all the good the Rockies had done ran smack into a pole.

“I feel bad -- I should have had it,” Tapia said in Spanish, with bullpen catcher Aaron Muñoz translating. “But at that point in the game, you don’t really feel much emotion. You’ve just got to keep going.”