CHICAGO -- After being one of the main reasons the Rockies were able to battle the Cubs into extra innings on Tuesday night, Brenton Doyle nearly helped his team complete the comeback victory.
Doyle came to the plate with one out in the 11th and runners at the corners, and Ezequiel Tovar represented the go-ahead run at third. Doyle hit a roller to second base, placed right where Chicago couldn’t turn an inning-ending double play and Tovar could score without a throw. It wasn’t a big, clutch base hit, but it got the job done.
Unfortunately, the lead didn’t last long. After Tyler Kinley allowed the automatic runner to score in the bottom frame, Cubs third baseman Matt Shaw delivered a walk-off single to beat the Rockies, 4-3, at Wrigley Field.
“It's always frustrating when you lose, but the boys fought hard tonight,” Colorado interim manager Warren Schaeffer said. “Check swing knocked the other way, stolen base [at] third, bloop hit. It's frustrating, sure.”
The Rockies couldn’t hang on after Doyle put his club ahead, but again, he was one of the driving forces to get the game to extras.
Following Germán Márquez’s six innings of two-run ball -- his second straight quality start and fourth of the season -- Doyle led off the seventh against Cubs starter Cade Horton, who’d gotten through six with just one run allowed. It didn’t take long for Doyle to find a pitch he liked.
On the first pitch of the inning, Doyle drove a sweeper over the middle of the plate 102.8 mph off the bat and into the left-field bleachers, tying up the ballgame.
“It was a good night for him,” Schaeffer said of Doyle, who also walked in the fourth. “That's a stepping stone to move forward. Yeah, he was big for us tonight, and we expect more of that.”
It was a nice game at the plate for Doyle, which is a positive step as he has struggled to find consistent results offensively in 2025.
Last season, he finished with a 104 OPS+ (100 is MLB average) on top of winning his second straight National League Gold Glove Award, helping him finish the year worth 3.7 wins above replacement (FanGraphs).
However, from the start of the year through Monday, Doyle posted a 66 OPS+ and was worth 0.0 fWAR. He hadn’t rated as highly defensively as he did last season, with his fielding run value (three) being in the 83rd percentile, according to Statcast (98th percentile a year ago). Still, his low offensive production is what has stood out.
Doyle’s contact-quality metrics aren’t any worse than last season. In 2024, he posted a barrel rate of 10.5 percent (72nd percentile), a hard-hit rate of 41.4 percent (58th percentile) and an average exit velocity of 89.2 mph (52nd percentile). Entering Tuesday, those numbers sat at 13.6 percent (81st percentile), 44 percent (54th percentile) and 90.1 mph (51st percentile), respectively. There’s actually been improvement in his quality of contact, yet Doyle hasn't been getting the results.
Part of working through that is trusting the process and continuing to push things in the right direction. Entering Tuesday’s game, compared to last season, Doyle had improved his walk rate (8.1 percent in ‘25 vs. 7.6 percent in ‘24), strikeout rate (24.3 percent vs. 25.4 percent), chase rate (28.2 percent vs. 30 percent) and whiff rate (26.5 percent vs. 29.8 percent). So he’s seeing positives in those categories, too.
It can get frustrating to not have things go your way despite similar or better metrics, but Doyle has tried to not let that affect him.
“It's part of the mental toughness of being up here,” he said. “You can't let a result like that kind of frustrate you mentally, or else it's going to go downhill from there. You just got to be positive with the result. Can't let it get to you too much.”
Amid a tough season for the Rockies, things haven’t been great for Doyle, at least when it comes to his offensive numbers.
But he proved last season his value when he’s feeling right on both sides of the ball. He wants to get back to being that guy, but he’s not trying to do too much to get there.
“I'm just trusting my process and routine,” Doyle said. “I'm not going to be a guy that's going to chase numbers. I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing, what feels good, and the rest will take care of itself.”