Rockies fans didn’t need to watch past the first inning on Wednesday to find out how the second game of the series in Atlanta panned out.

Colorado went down 4-0 in that opening frame en route to a 5-2 loss. The Rockies struck out 16 times, and everyone in the lineup had at least one K as the Braves clinched the series to drop Colorado to 51-89.

“We have a number of guys who have a propensity to strike out,” Rockies manager Bud Black told reporters. “This is not something that we’re not aware of. It’s been something that’s been happening all year. We have a lot of young players who expand the zone. … It’s a challenge for our young guys, moving forward, to make that commitment to cut our strikeouts down as an offense.”

The Braves got on the board quickly, creating chaos with two outs in the first inning after rookie right-hander Bradley Blalock retired the first two batters. Marcell Ozuna doubled, then Matt Olson doubled him home.

And after a walk to Travis d’Arnaud, Jarred Kelenic delivered the gut punch with a three-run homer to right to make it 4-0.

“Ozuna got a hanging breaking ball with two strikes, Olson got a ball up,” Black said. “Then (Kelenic) battled, and that was a good at-bat. He hung in there and got a (splitter) down and in that he homered on.”

But the Rockies responded in the top of the next inning, spurred by Nolan Jones’ one-out walk. Sam Hilliard tripled off Charlie Morton to score Jones, then Charlie Blackmon’s two-out double to right brought Hilliard home to cut the deficit to 4-2.

Neither starter yielded any further damage after that, with both Blalock and Morton throwing five innings. Blalock worked around walks in the second, third, fourth and fifth, with two of those frames featuring free passes to the leadoff man. The Rockies, meanwhile, had traffic in Morton’s final three innings but couldn’t capitalize.

“Blalock hung in there,” Black said. “He bobbed and weaved through innings two through five, and he showed some grit.”

With the game turned over to the bullpens, Colorado’s was the first to crack. Jorge Soler’s RBI single off Jake Bird in the sixth pushed Atlanta’s lead to 5-2.

Old friend Pierce Johnson, a Faith Christian product who pitched for the Rockies before the club dealt him to the Braves at last year’s trade deadline, pitched a one-two-three seventh. Joe Jimenez replicated that feat in the eighth before Raisel Iglesias slammed the door in the ninth for his 30th save. Iglesias ran his MLB-best active scoreless streak to 23 1/3 innings.

The Braves improved to 61-3 when leading after the seventh inning. Meanwhile, the Rockies have accumulated 29 strikeouts in the first two games of the series. Colorado only had one hit in the final seven innings on Wednesday.

Criswell responds to angry Merrifield

A day after rookie right-hander Jeff Criswell beaned the Braves’ Whit Merrifield in the head with a 94 mph fastball in the seventh inning of Colorado’s loss in the series opener, Criswell expressed contrition for the errant pitch.

“I sent a message over and just again tried to apologize — reiterate that it was not intentional,” Criswell told MLB.com. “At least try to get that message over to him.”

Merrifield was not seriously injured by the pitch, but he was immediately removed from the game, and then afterwards ripped Criswell and other inexperienced pitchers who are gassing hitters inside, sometimes with perilous results.