Category Archives: Rockies/MLB

May 29, 2012

This is what the Rockies have been waiting for

By Dave Krieger

With his words, Rockies manager Jim Tracy has always been in Dexter Fowler’s corner. With his actions, not so much.

And who could blame him? He has a team to run, and ballgames to try to win. Fowler’s ceiling is sky-high. He could be Willie Wilson with power. And yet, for most of his four seasons in Colorado he has been a tease — hot and cold, fast and slow, one step forward and two steps back.

Despite graceful, long-legged speed that roamed the vast expanses of Coors Field like a deer, his stolen base success rate was lousy. No matter how much he practiced, he didn’t seem able to learn to bunt. His switch-hitting, learned relatively late in his development, seemed a perpetual experiment.

Finally, in the second half of last season, he seemed to put it together. After batting .238 before the All-Star break with no home runs, two stolen bases (caught six times) and an OPS of .688, he was demoted to Triple-A Colorado Springs, quite a rebuke for a 25-year-old veteran of three big league seasons.

When he returned to the big leagues, he looked like the player he was supposed to be, batting .288 with five homers, 10 steals (caught three times) and an OPS of .879. He had finally arrived, they said. Of course, they’d said that before.

Known for their patience, the Rocks finally grew impatient with a number of their homegrown position players after last season’s disappointing 73-89 finish, among them Ian Stewart, Seth Smith and Chris Iannetta, all of whom were traded during the offseason. But not Fowler. His second half of 2011, the club was convinced, was a preview of coming attractions.

But when he showed up at spring training, it was the same old story. He had regressed to Square One. His hands, which had come down in his batting stance after the 2011 midseason tutorial at Colorado Springs, were up high again. And, once again, he couldn’t hit. He batted .149 in the Cactus League. Tracy was forced to shelve the tentative 2012 lineup in which Fowler batted leadoff and served as the offensive catalyst.

The Rocks began the season with Fowler batting second, behind veteran Marco Scutaro. When that became a dead zone, Tracy dropped him to eighth.

His overall numbers weren’t terrible — he was batting .237 going into Monday’s Memorial Day doubleheader, with an OPS of .832 thanks to six home runs and 19 walks — but he had shown a bizarre knack for getting his hits when it mattered least. When the Rocks led or trailed by more than four runs, he was batting over .400. When the game was closer than that, he was batting below .200. He had driven in just one run that put his team ahead. By contrast, Todd Helton, batting just .230, had eight. Troy Tulowitzki had nine. Jason Giambi, a professional pinch-hitter, had three.

So Fowler was slowly losing playing time. Going into Memorial Day, he had started 33 of the Rocks’ 46 games. Tyler Colvin (eight) and Eric Young Jr. (five) had started the others in center field. As if to turn his struggles from the discouraging to the absurd, he had been limited to pinch-hitting duty for three days in Cincinnati last week after turning his ankle while jumping to celebrate a Carlos Gonzalez home run.

But with the Rockies swiftly sliding into oblivion in the National League West and Fowler having launched a pinch-hit homer in his final at-bat of the recent road trip — with the Rocks down only three, no less — Tracy took a shot in Monday’s opener and penciled him into his lineup to start a game in the leadoff spot for the first time this season.

Suddenly, as in time-lapse photography, the flower bloomed. He began the day with a home run and ended it, nearly nine hours later, with a walk-off, game-winning triple — twice as many go-ahead RBI in one day as he’d had the entire season. In between, he produced five other hits, including a bunt single that turned into three bases when his speed forced an errant throw. He also threw in a bases-loaded walk and a perfectly executed sacrifice bunt late in the nightcap.

In all, he was 7-for-9 with five runs scored and three driven in, raising his batting average from .237 to .276 and his OPS from .832 to .926. The Rocks swept the doubleheader. Suddenly, there was joy in Mudville. That’s how much difference Fowler can make.

“That looked like the Dexter Fowler that was running around out there the second half of last year, but maybe even a little bit more. That’s how good he was,” Tracy said.

“I’ve had some sit-downs with Dexter and I’ve been questioned from the media about the situation — you know, him, Eric Young Jr., Tyler Colvin. I’m a big believer in Dexter Fowler, as you guys well know. I’ve stepped to the forefront and said that I firmly believe that this kid’s going to figure it out and he’s going to do it. And when he performs at the level that he performed at today, we’re that much better a club offensively. There’s so many things that he can do. The bunt that he laid down, it creates havoc, he’s so fast. He runs from home to third on a bunt that gets past the first baseman. This is the player that we think he’s capable of being on a regular basis, and not spotty. He can do this on a day-in, day-out basis. He’s very capable of it.”

Sure he can. But will he? The Rocks preach patience in all things, whether it’s Fowler, the young pitching staff or their own front office, which is under increasing fire from unhappy fans. Of course, it was under increasing fire from unhappy fans throughout the early aughts, too. That’s when the organization, under general manager Dan O’Dowd, shifted from the model of acquiring established players that worked well early on (Andres Galarraga, Dante Bichette, Larry Walker) but not so well later (Mike Hampton, Denny Neagle), to a model of growing its own talent.

It took years for the rebuilt player development system to begin producing, and the early aughts were a wasteland. O’Dowd should have been fired at least a dozen times along the way, if you listened to his critics. But when Matt Holliday, Garrett Atkins, Jeff Francis and Ubaldo Jimenez led them to the 2007 World Series, the organization’s patience through the dead years was rewarded.

Today, once again, O’Dowd and the front office are under fire. Today, once again, they are counseling patience. We don’t know yet whether they will be proven right about the young crop of starting pitchers that is putting up cringe-worthy numbers at the moment. The Rocks’ team ERA of 5.18 is worst in the National League by nearly three-quarters of a run.

Of 23-year-old Alex White, who gave up six runs and 10 hits in five innings to raise his earned-run average to 6.28 in Monday’s nightcap, Tracy said this:

“He hung in there, just like he did in the game in Florida. He didn’t break. Until we can get to the point where we get lower numbers and much deeper into the game, that’s what we ask of these young kids: ‘Don’t break. Don’t let the game get out of hand and we’ll keep learning and we’ll keep growing together. But don’t let the game get out of hand.’ He’s done it twice. (Christian) Friedrich did it Friday night against Johnny Cueto in Cincinnati. And we’ve won those ballgames.”

If Fowler becomes the consistent, multifaceted offensive weapon he could be, he will serve as Exhibit A for the organization’s commitment to patience. What distinguished him from Stewart, Smith and Iannetta in the eyes of the organization was not just the ceiling, it was also the attitude. One of the most likable professional athletes on the planet, Fowler has never sulked or griped about his ups and downs. His desire was obvious during the celebration that followed his game-winning triple in the 19th and final inning of the long holiday doubleheader.

“Tears of joy . . . I was excited,” he said. “I had one walk-off hit before, but nothing like this, from what I’ve battled through this year, and what the team has battled through.”

At 19-29, the Rocks are still a long way from where they thought they’d be at this point. But the offense that scored 16 runs in two games Monday showed the sort of explosiveness the organization imagined when it reconstructed the roster over the winter.

“I think it’s very safe to say that offensively, we felt this way,” Tracy said. “We felt we had a good offensive club, and it’s beginning to play itself out that way.”

The key word being “beginning.” Fowler broke out Monday with the best day of his professional career. Now comes what has always been the hardest part for him — keeping it going.

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May 20, 2012

Rockies’ dilemma: Hope or change?

By Dave Krieger

Sunday’s in-game conversation on Twitter was all about the Rockies needing to do something dramatic to get out of a funk that dropped them to 15-25 on the season as the lowly Seattle Mariners completed a three-game sweep with a 6-4 victory at Coors Field.

Fire somebody. Rewrite the lineup. Something.

The post-game conversation in the clubhouse was all about the Rockies as currently constituted needing to get it together in a hurry.

“There’s no Lombardi speech you can give,” said veteran Jason Giambi. “We’ve just got to try to win one game and make it that simple. I mean, we can’t play any worse than we have. We need to pick it up and win tomorrow. And then win the next day. I think we can’t get ahead of ourselves.”

Manager Jim Tracy was more succinct:

“Obviously, we’re in a rut, and we have to dig ourselves out,” he said. “That’s what we have to do. We’ve got 122 chances to do it.”

That would be the number of games remaining on the schedule. So there’s plenty of time, but the trend is not their friend. The Rocks were 12-12 on May 2. Since then, they are 3-13.

Todd Helton, who saw his batting average fall to .219 on Sunday, stood at home plate in the bottom of the ninth with the tying runs on base and two out. He struck out for the third consecutive time to end the game. I asked him afterward what the strike three pitch was.

“A fastball right down the middle,” he said. “It was about the only pitch I saw all day that I felt like I was on. I was waiting to hear a sound and I never did.”

Tracy said it was just a slump, like the one right fielder Michael Cuddyer was in (0-for-13 on the homestand) before breaking out with a single and two doubles Sunday. But when you’re three months from your 39th birthday, as Helton is, every slump comes with additional questions: Is this it? Remember Dale Murphy? Should the Rocks be anticipating the end by moving somebody else into the No. 5 hole in the lineup?

Then again, the No. 4 hitter isn’t doing much better, and he’s only 27. Nearly two months into the season, Troy Tulowitzki has four homers and 16 RBI.

“I don’t think Troy’s in a very good place right now offensively,” Tracy said of his shortstop, who came up with two on and one out in the ninth, just before Helton, and hit a harmless ground ball to third.

The Rocks got three-hit days from Carlos Gonzalez and Cuddyer but did not benefit from any compounding effect because they were separated in the lineup by the combined 0-for-8 of Tulo and Helton. CarGo and Cuddyer never came up in the same inning.

Hence my own modest proposal, Cuddyer’s recent slump notwithstanding: Move Tulo and Helton down in the order until they get their swings back. Move Cuddyer into the No. 4 hole and Tyler Colvin into the No. 5 hole, at least against right-handers, as long as he’s hitting well.

“It’s just hard to smile right now,” said Gonzalez, who had a single, double and home run out of the No. 3 hole to increase his team-leading totals to eight jacks and 32 RBI.

“It doesn’t matter what you do out there. Not being able to win is difficult. It’s tough for me, it’s tough for everyone else in this clubhouse. We’re a talented team but we’re just not playing really good baseball. We need to start playing better defensively. We’re making little mistakes that cost runs. At the end of the game, that’s when you see the difference. All those runs that we give away, that costs you at the end of the game.”

Sunday, it was a botched defense against a stolen base attempt in the first inning. With Mariners leadoff man Dustin Ackley on third, cleanup man Kyle Seager on first and two out, Seager took off for second. Rookie catcher Wilin Rosario let loose with a wild throw to the shortstop side of the bag. Ackley broke from third. Second baseman Marco Scutaro came off the bag to spear the errant throw, then let loose a wild throw of his own back to the plate. It sailed wide of Rosario and Seattle had its first run. The Mariners plated another two-out run with a walk and a single before the Rocks finally escaped the top of the first, trailing 2-0.

When I asked Gonzalez what else he was referring to, he pointed out the team’s usual problems playing fundamental baseball.

“If there’s a guy on second base, we can’t be making big swings instead of just moving the runner,” he said. “That’s a free run for us. We always push the pedal at the end, but we’re going to fall short if we don’t do that early in the game. We had a couple opportunities with a runner on second and if you don’t get that guy to third base with no outs, you’re making it a lot more difficult for the guy right next to you. It’s always going to be that way if you don’t play smart baseball. That’s what I mean saying we need to play better baseball.”

Two cases Sunday fit his description. Cuddyer singled and stole second leading off the bottom of the second. Rosario followed with a big swing strikeout and Cuddyer never advanced beyond second. Eric Young Jr. singled and stole second leading off the fifth. Scutaro pulled a ground ball to short and Young had to stay put. He never advanced beyond second, either. Find a way to small-ball those runners home and the two runs the Rocks scored in the ninth are enough to tie it.

Which brings us to the starting pitching, the Rockies’ black hole so far. It let them down again Sunday. Away from Coors Field, veteran Jeremy Guthrie has been all general manager Dan O’Dowd hoped he would be (2-0, 1.86 ERA) when he acquired him from Baltimore last winter. At Coors Field, after Sunday’s outing, he is 0-2 with a 9.92 ERA.

Everybody knows about the challenges of pitching at high altitude, so I asked Guthrie if Coors Field presents problems for him.

“I haven’t pitched very well here so I can’t necessarily judge it by the field,” he said. “I just know I haven’t executed nearly enough pitches when I’ve pitched here, both falling behind guys and making poor pitches ahead in the count.”

Not sure if he understood the question, I asked if it’s harder to execute his pitches at Coors.

“It doesn’t seem any harder,” he said. “I mean, I haven’t done it as consistently as I have in the past, but I don’t know that it’s inherently any more difficult to do it here than it would be at another mound. It’s pretty much the same game.”

Many of the fixes that unhappy fans want wouldn’t necessarily change anything immediately. Fire Tracy, fire O’Dowd, fire pitching coach Bob Apodaca. It is the players on this year’s roster that are putting up the season’s dreary numbers, and you can’t fire them; at least, not all of them.

When O’Dowd fired Clint Hurdle in 2009, it was just six games later in the year (they were 18-28). But it was Hurdle’s eighth season at the helm and O’Dowd decided his voice had grown stale in the clubhouse. Tracy is in just his fourth season and there is no sign the front office has similar fears about him.

Firing Apodaca would suggest management believes the team’s pitching woes track back to the pitching coach. Fans tend to give coaches much more responsibility for players’ performances than team officials, who know just how often players pay attention to coaches and just how often they don’t. Still, if the club decides unhappy fans need a gesture, Apodaca might be the sacrificial lamb. The Rocks do have the worst team ERA in the National League.

Blaming O’Dowd makes the most sense because he assembled the roster that has performed so poorly so far. But front office firings seldom occur during the season and it’s only fair to point out that O’Dowd also built the Rockies teams that went to the playoffs two out of the past five seasons.

So for now, it’s on the players O’Dowd assembled. At 38, can Helton bounce back? At 27, will Tulowitzki ever learn to play within himself? Will some combination of young starting pitchers figure it out as the season goes on?

“We’re not playing well,” Helton said. “You’re obviously going to put more pressure on yourself to go out and win some games. We just need to start playing a little better. There’s no other way to put it.”

Hope is winning the argument now because there’s not that much of significance you can change during the season. But if hope doesn’t pan out, change is coming.

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May 6, 2012

Rockies’ pitching staff in disarray

By Dave Krieger

Actually, disarray may be too mild a word for the state of the Rockies’ pitching staff after it blew early leads of 5-0 and 6-0 on consecutive nights against the Braves, scoring seventeen runs in two games and losing them both.

“That’s the worst game of the year for us,” manager Jim Tracy said after the second, Saturday night’s 13-9 throwback to the early days of baseball at altitude.

By the time it was over, the Rocks’ team earned-run average had ballooned to 5.06, worst in the National League. Esmil Rogers, who allowed five earned runs in an inning and a third, saw his ERA soar to 8.36. Edgmer Escalona is at 8.53.

“Our pitching, as I mentioned last night, it’s got to be better than what we’re seeing right now,” Tracy said in the understatement of the soggy evening at Coors Field. “It’s unacceptable. That’s the best way I can describe it.”

Generally inclined to defend his players to a fault, Tracy was critical of Rogers and Rex Brothers for lack of consistency out of the bullpen, just as he had torched Jhoulys Chacin and Guillermo Moscoso recently for short, ineffective starts.

And it’s not as though all this trouble is in the rear view. Before Saturday night’s debacle, the club was forced to abandon plans to bring Jeremy Guthrie off the disabled list for Tuesday’s game in San Diego, meaning Tracy had to tell reporters he didn’t know who would start either Tuesday’s or Wednesday’s game there. At the moment, he has three healthy starters, one of whom is 49 years old and couldn’t hold leads of 6-0 and 8-3 on Saturday.

That, of course, would be Jamie Moyer, who became the oldest player to get a hit in a big league game Saturday since 50-year-old Minnie Minoso got one for the White Sox in 1976. Heartwarming as this tale is, Moyer is trying to get batters out at Coors Field with a “fastball” clocked at 77 miles per hour, which is slower than most major league changeups. Saturday, he managed to do it for four innings before everything unraveled.

“The wheels fell off,” he said afterward. “Solo home runs usually don’t beat you, but they just chipped away, chipped away. I couldn’t get an out in the sixth. I don’t have an answer for you right now.”

After giving up two solo homers and a single to open the sixth, Moyer departed with an 8-5 lead and one runner aboard. By the time Rogers was finished pouring kerosene on the brush fire, the score was tied and the bases were loaded. By the time Brothers departed two outs later, the Braves led 12-8.

The fact that the Rocks are counting on Moyer at all is evidence of the implosion of their plans for this year’s pitching staff. Coming off Tommy John surgery and old enough to be most of his teammates’ father, Moyer was a non-roster invitee to spring training, the longest of long shots. The Rockies had nine starters ahead of him when pitchers and catchers reported in February.

After trading Ubaldo Jimenez for three pitchers from Cleveland, Seth Smith for two pitchers from Oakland and Chris Iannetta for a pitcher from the L.A. Angels, it looked as though they’d have enough starters to staff both the big league club and the Triple-A affiliate in Colorado Springs. Instead, it’s as if they all caught some awful, contagious disease.

Josh Outman, one of the pitchers from Oakland, got hurt. Guillermo Moscoso, the other pitcher from Oakland, was ineffective. So were Tyler Chatwood, the pitcher from the Angels, and Alex White, one of the pitchers from Cleveland. Only one of these four had to pitch well enough to bump Moyer from consideration. None of them did.

Jhoulys Chacin, the Rockies’ winningest pitcher last year, showed up out of shape and pitched to an ERA of 7.30 before being shipped out. Guthrie, the fitness freak obtained from Baltimore who rides a bicycle to the ballpark, had some sort of chain problem that crashed his bike, leaving him with a shoulder injury and a trip to the disabled list.

So here they are, with two healthy starters under the age of forty-nine — Juan Nicasio and rookie Drew Pomeranz — and just nine quality starts in twenty-six games, fewest in the National League. The bullpen, which started well, has been called upon way too much and is already fried. There are no quick fixes, either. If there were, you can bet the Yankees and Red Sox would have bought them up already.

The good news is Nicasio and Pomeranz pitch the next two. Each went at least six innings in his last start, which makes them marathon men in comparison to the rest of the Rockies’ staff.

The bad news is nobody is quite sure what happens after that. Christian Friedrich, the Rocks’ first-round draft pick in 2008, last pitched at Triple-A on Friday, which would make the timing right for Wednesday’s start in San Diego. He wasn’t exactly lights out, giving up five runs, three earned, in five and two-thirds innings, but the Rocks don’t have a lot of options. His overall ERA of 3.00 in thirty innings isn’t bad, particularly for the Pacific Coast League.

White last pitched for the Sky Sox on Tuesday, managing just four and two-thirds innings. Outman is on his way back from an oblique injury and a long way from being ready to go deep into a game as a starter. Chacin and Moscoso were just recently banished to Colorado Springs because they pitched so poorly.

So while Tracy declined to speculate, the options include Carlos Torres, recently called up from Triple-A to be a long relief man, and Friedrich. But stay tuned. Television analyst George Frazier and his son, Parker, now at Double-A Tulsa, might be options by the time the team arrives in San Diego.

All of this is having the depressing effect you might expect on the rest of the clubhouse. The Rocks are tied for second in the National League in runs, but when you score eight and nine in consecutive games and lose them both, that’s not much consolation.

“It’s hard when you go down like this after scoring six runs early in the game and feeling excited when things are going well early in the game,” said Carlos Gonzalez, who had four hits Saturday to raise his team-leading batting average to .323.

“Everything just blew up in the middle of the game. We just have to hold the other team and continue to score runs if we need to. It’s difficult. It’s a tough loss and I’m really tired of saying the same things over and over. We need to figure it out and just try to get that ‘W’.”

Rockies management might be forgiven if this were an isolated run of bad luck. After all, Moscoso made twenty-one starts for Oakland last season and pitched to an ERA of 3.38. Outman made nine more. Chatwood made twenty-five for the Angels. The Rockies have gotten two forgettable starts from Moscoso and none from the others.

But this organization has been struggling to assemble a competent pitching staff for years, and it has made some whopper mistakes with pitchers early in the the draft, most notably selecting Greg Reynolds with the second overall pick in 2006, in the process passing on Clayton Kershaw and Tim Lincecum, now the aces of two of their rivals in the National League West. At some point, you have to ask whether the existing management is capable of judging pitching talent, whether in the draft or the trade and free agent markets. Pitching at altitude poses unique difficulties, but you can’t do worse than last in the league.

Of course, those organizational questions are not Tracy’s concern at the moment. He just needs to find somebody — anybody — who can get people out. Preferably this week.

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May 3, 2012

Rockies hitters still covering for lousy pitching

By Dave Krieger

Jason Giambi’s 429th career home run won the Rockies both a game and a series in dramatic walk-off fashion Wednesday, but the team is still struggling to get a disappointing pitching staff together.

“I knew I hit it good when I got it,” Giambi said on the Dave Logan Show just minutes after his three-run bomb in the bottom of the ninth gave the Rocks an 8-5 win in the rubber match of their first series of the season against the Dodgers.

“It’s kind of a like a warm butter knife through butter. It’s just nice and easy and free. I was just excited to get it up in the air because I knew that’s what we needed in that situation. It’s always exciting when it goes out of the park and you get met at home plate. That’s what keeps you coming back every year. You can’t get that feeling anywhere else on the planet. That’s what keeps me training and working out and coming back.”

The Rocks got a rare quality start Wednesday, just their ninth in twenty-four games, which is tied for worst in the National League. Rookie Drew Pomeranz gave them their first look at the dominance general manager Dan O’Dowd was betting on when he made Pomeranz the centerpiece of last summer’s Ubaldo Jimenez trade.

Still, with the bullpen taxed from so many short starts, setup men Matt Belisle and Rex Brothers couldn’t hold a 2-1 lead in the eighth and closer Rafael Betancourt couldn’t hold a 5-3 lead in the ninth.

On the bright side, the lineup kept bouncing back. After the Dodgers went up 3-2 in the eighth, Carlos Gonzalez hit his second homer of the game off Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw. After L.A. tied it in the ninth, Giambi delivered the game-winner with CarGo waiting on deck. All three homers by the left-handed hitters came off left-handed pitchers.

“The exciting part is last year I think we would have gave away that game,” Giambi said. “But this year it’s been a lot of these games where we’ve kept fighting and not let it get us down offensively when they’ve come back and tied the game or even went ahead. We’re starting to grow as a ball club. The maturity level of the younger players is starting to come through. Hopefully this is the win that jump starts us to start playing a lot better baseball.”

Obviously, that can’t happen until the pitching improves. Manager Jim Tracy finally got fed up Tuesday when Jhoulys Chacin put his team in a 7-0 hole, allowing four runs before an out was recorded. The Rocks battled back but lost 7-6. Tracy called the starting effort “awful,” and Chacin, the team’s winningest pitcher last season, was optioned to Triple-A Colorado Springs the next day. The Rockies are last in the National League in opponent batting average (.287), tied for last in quality starts and next to last in earned-run average (4.69). Yet they’re 12-12.

“We’re playing good baseball, but we haven’t played great, and I think our best baseball is yet to come,” Giambi said. “We’re starting to cinch up a few things. Our defense is getting better. Our bats are getting better. We’re starting to figure it out on the mound. Unfortunately, we just need to get some of these starters to go a little bit deeper in the game because our bullpen’s tired. Skipper’s having to give a lot of guys days off in the bullpen just because we’re not getting the length that we need. And I think that’s going to happen. They’re working on it and that’s the best you can do.”

There are hopeful signs. Pomeranz threw 6 2/3 innings Wednesday, giving up just one run, his longest outing of the season so far. Juan Nicasio threw six in Colorado’s 6-2 victory over the Dodgers in the series opener. Jamie Moyer has been better than anyone had a right to expect from a 49-year-old coming off Tommy John surgery. Jorge De La Rosa has begun a series of minor league rehab starts following his own Tommy John surgery. Barring setbacks, he could be back in the big leagues by the end of the month. And while Jeremy Guthrie had a lousy start, once he recovers from his bicycle crash he should revert to his own history as a reliable innings eater.

In the meantime, CarGo is red-hot and basically carrying the team. He has fourteen runs batted in over the past six games.

“He just oozes with talent,” Giambi said. “You could always tell that he was a phenomenal player. I know he kind of went around the league a little bit, but you could tell the talent was always there. We would always say in New York when he was with Oakland, like, ‘Who’s this CarGo kid?’ He would play one day and hit a few bullets and the next couple days he wouldn’t play. We were like, ‘Why isn’t that guy in the lineup?’

“I think he was just trying to find his way and he’s finally starting to come into his own. This kid is going to be as good as he wants to be. He’s one of those guys, you look at the A-Rods, the Jeters, the Rickey Hendersons that I’ve played with, he’s going to be as good as he wants to be. He’s putting in the work and he’s trying to learn and he asks a lot of questions because he wants to better.”

So the Rocks are keeping their heads above water while sorting out the pitching. Guillermo Moscoso has already been called up to fill in for Guthrie while he’s on the disabled list. The Rocks called up right-hander Carlos Torrez on Thursday but it’s not clear whether he’ll take Chacin’s turn on Monday or the club will make another move before that. Torrez, who pitched for the White Sox in 2009 and 2010 and in Japan last season, was starting for the Sky Sox, but averaging only five innings per outing. Alex White and Christian Friedrich are also possibilities to be recalled from the Springs to make Chacin’s next start.

In the meantime, Giambi likes the fight he’s seen in the early going and credits the addition of veterans to the roster — Marco Scutaro, Ramon Hernandex, Michael Cuddyer — with providing some of the resilience.

“We’ve had some meetings and I’ve had a lot of meetings with the younger kids saying that I’m proud of them this year, where before we would take a lead and if the other team came back or went ahead, we kind of went in shut-down mode and didn’t keep pushing,” Giambi said.

“We’ve really turned the corner this year of doing that. It’s exciting to watch. I think it’s helped out to have a few more veterans around to help these younger kids get through it, and they’re responding.”

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April 22, 2012

Jim Tracy: Not so stubborn after all

By Dave Krieger

Questioned about his deployment of the Rockies’ B team last Sunday, manager Jim Tracy refused to give an inch. But he changed tactics today, and it paid off.

A week ago, with a rare chance to sweep a three-game series against Arizona, Tracy wrote out a Sunday lineup that featured only three regular starters — shortstop Troy Tulowitzki, right fielder Michael Cuddyer and third baseman Chris Nelson. Inasmuch as Nelson had become the regular earlier that day when Jordan Pacheco was optioned to Colorado Springs, the lineup had even more of a spring training “B” game feel than even the numbers suggested. The Rocks managed only two runs and the Diamondbacks salvaged the final game of the three game set, 5-2.

The wholesale substitution policy was especially annoying to fans after last season’s horrendous record on Sundays, when the Rocks lost seventeen Sunday games in a row on the way to a record of 6-19 on the day many families choose to take the kids out to the ballgame.

After last Sunday’s game, which dropped the Rocks’ 2012 Sunday record to 0-2, Tracy was asked what he would say to fans who paid full price for admission only to see him empty his bench onto his lineup card.

“One of the things that they’re going to have to understand is we have some guys on this club that if you run ’em out there every single day, April, May and June, when you get to July, August and September, when you start analyzing the ages of some of our players and realize that we’re playing at altitude and that rest and recovery in the cases of several of those are going to be very, very important to the success of this club,” he said.

“This club is built that on certain days, we’re going to have to do some different things. That’s all there is to it, or those guys, there’s not going to be much left of them for the second half of the season.”

He had a point. With Todd Helton, 38; Marco Scutaro, 36; and Ramon Hernandez, 35, all members of the starting lineup — to say nothing of the effects of altitude on recovery times that Tracy mentioned — the Rocks’ older regulars will need more days off than those of many other teams. And last Sunday, the problem was compounded by Carlos Gonzalez’s case of strep throat, which forced him from the lineup.

Still, I followed up his answer in the post-game press conference by asking why he couldn’t rest his regulars one or two at a time, throughout the week, rather than all at once, in effect trotting out a B team.

“You have a good young catcher,” he replied, referring to rookie Wilin Rosario. “You have a first baseman that we’ve talked an awful lot about the last couple of days. You know that situation there. You’ve got another guy sick that’s not even here at the ballpark. There are some days where you’d like to have it a heck of a lot different than it is, but if that’s the situation on a given day, you have to deal with it, that’s all.”

Tracy is one of the few managers in baseball willing to take on pretty much any question, but he dodged that one. Rosario being a promising young player does not explain why Hernandez must sit when most of the other regulars are also out. This seemed especially questionable in the Arizona game, which was rookie pitcher Drew Pomeranz’s first big league start of the season. Common sense seemed to suggest he be given a veteran battery mate. As it was, Pomeranz struggled and Rosario was in little position to help.

And even if Tracy’s other points were correct — Helton will get day games after night games off, which is the case many Sundays, and CarGo was unavailable — that didn’t explain why he chose to give the same day off to Scutaro, Hernandez and Dexter Fowler. To be fair, Tyler Colvin has been better than Fowler so far this season, so let’s call that one a voluntary tactical decision. But resting the three veterans — Helton, Scutaro and Hernandez — all on the same day was unnecessary.

If Tracy’s replies suggested he would not change his mind, his lineup today showed more flexibility. With a chance to win their third series in a row in a rubber match at Milwaukee, Tracy gave days off to three, not five regulars, and only one of the three veterans he rested a week earlier. In fact, he started Rosario for Hernandez on Saturday night so he could start Hernandez on Sunday with Helton out. And he paid the price — Rosario was charged with two passed balls, and it could have been three, Saturday night.

The other two regulars who got today off — Fowler and Nelson — were replaced by players off to better offensive starts — Colvin and Jonathan Herrera. So they were arguably deployed on merit, as Colvin was the week before, not to rest Fowler or Nelson, two of the lineup’s youngest players. So Helton was arguably the only starter given the day off so he could rest.

The three subs — Colvin, Herrera and Jason Giambi — collected three hits, scored two runs and drove in one in Colorado’s 4-1 victory.

Of course, if baseball named three stars of the game the way hockey does, the top two for the Rocks would have been pitchers. Jeremy Guthrie enjoyed his best start of the young season, surrendering one run and three hits in seven innings. After Rex Brothers began the eighth by allowing the first two batters to reach base on a walk and a hit, Matt Belisle came on to retire the heart of the Milwaukee order — Ryan Braun, Aramis Ramirez and Corey Hart. Belisle has yet to give up a run in seven appearances this season and his WHIP — walks and hits per inning pitched — is a microscopic 0.15.

Still, it looks as if Tracy decided to deploy a more competitive lineup than a week ago. Oddly, a mental mistake by Scutaro led to the Brew Crew’s only run. As Tony Soprano used to say, whaddya gonna do?

We’ll get a chance to see if Tracy’s change of tactics is permanent when the Rocks play host to the Mets at Coors Field next Sunday afternoon. But after today’s result, a more moderate pattern of substitution does seem advisable. Often accused by critics of stubbornness, Tracy should get credit for changing tactics that had been publicly questioned.

The Rocks have now won four of five and enter a series, in Pittsburgh, over .500 at 8-7, the first time that’s happened this season.

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April 15, 2012

After one start, nowhere to go but up for Drew Pomeranz

By Dave Krieger

Evidently, expectations are the Rockies’ kryptonite. Individually, collectively and in small groups.

So it should come as no surprise that Drew Pomeranz’s much-anticipated first major league start of the season disappointed. The 23-year-old power left-hander, the jewel of the Ubaldo Jimenez trade, lacked command of his fastball from the start, surrendering three hits to the Diamondbacks in the first inning, including a rocket of a home run by Chris Young.

Before the game, manager Jim Tracy said he would let Pomeranz throw 90-95 pitches after opening the season with a 77-pitch outing for Double A Tulsa. The Rocks intend to manage Pomeranz’s innings carefully this season, trying to avoid a jump from last season’s 119 so dramatic it might produce an arm injury. Last year was Pomeranz’s first as a pro after Cleveland made him the fifth overall pick of the 2010 amateur draft.

Already nursing an overworked bullpen after four starters failed to reach the fifth inning in the five previous games of the current nine-game homestand, Tracy was hoping 90-95 pitches would get Pomeranz deeper into the game than 4 1/3 innings, which is all he managed.

“His command was not quite where we saw it in spring training, and I think a big part of that was he struggled with his breaking ball today,” Tracy said.

“He was throwing a lot of breaking balls where he was trying to involve it in the count and it ended up looking as though it was a two-strike breaking ball — a lot of bounced breaking balls and some misses with his fastball. And I think evidence of that is 100 pitches in 4 1/3 innings and you can’t go any further than that.”

In those 4 1/3 innings, Pomeranz gave up nine hits and five earned runs. He walked two, struck out three and surrendered the one homer. He also seemed baffled by the presence of baserunners, giving up four stolen bases, three of them on jumps so big that catcher Wilin Rosario didn’t even make a throw. Trying to change his rhythm to hold runners on, Pomeranz also committed a balk.

So, plenty to work on.

“I threw a lot of balls down the middle,” Pomeranz said. “I’m usually pretty good about staying corner to corner and missed over the middle of the plate to a good fastball-hitting team and that’s what happens.”

The inquiring minds offered up an assortment of excuses. Was he nervous for his first big league start of the season?

“Not really,” he said. “I may have been a little jacked up that first inning, but nothing after that.”

Did the cold (a wind chill of 39 to start the game) and wind affect his grip?

He shook his head, no.

“The takeaway from that is a good learning experience,” he said. “You miss over the middle of the plate, you’re going to get hit. I didn’t throw a lot of changeups today, didn’t have a good mix of three pitches. Struggled a little bit. They weren’t swinging at my curve ball. I threw some good curve balls, (but) it was like they were spitting on it waiting for fastballs.”

This may have been because, as Tracy suggested, he seldom threw his curve for strikes. Hitters will chase breaking pitches out of the zone when they have two strikes and are forced to defend the plate, but more often than not the Diamondbacks were in hitters’ counts against Pomeranz that allowed them to wait for those fat fastballs.

Pomeranz also lacked the mid-nineties velocity that has been advertised. The top speed on his fastball Sunday, according to the Coors Field radar gun, was 92.

I asked him what typically causes the command issues he demonstrated Sunday.

“A lot today, most of those hits, the home run the first inning and the last hit I gave up, were fastballs that were away that were kind of coming back middle of the plate up,” he said. “They weren’t down. They’re a good fastball-hitting team and when you’re missing down the middle up, they’re going to hit it.”

Is that the normal action of his four-seam fastball, starting outside to right-handed hitters and coming back over the plate?

“Yeah, normally my four-seams will cut, but stay in,” he said. “Like I said, I’m usually pretty good at staying out of the middle. But today I threw a lot of fastballs away that would come back and they hit ’em.”

Pomeranz downplayed the issues he had with baserunners, suggesting a simple switch to a slide step out of the stretch was all he needed.

“You could see I just went to the slide step after that,” he said, referring to three third-inning steals, two by Gerardo Parra and one by Young.

“They were getting good jumps on me so I just tried to cut my time down as much as possible and mix up some more looks. I think they may have stole one base after I switched to the slide step. The slide step’s what I did all last year. This year I’m back to picking my leg up, but it’s pretty long to the plate, so I just switched back.”

Tracy clearly thought it was more than that. Parra’s uncontested journey from first to third in the third inning was something you just don’t see in the big leagues. He tried to repeat the process in the fifth, but Justin Upton drilled a base hit as he ran, turning it into a run-and-hit and producing the jam that led to Pomeranz’s exit.

“I think as we go back and we look at film, there’s obviously an adjustment we’re going to have to make there because there was something, it seemed very apparent to me, that they had,” Tracy said.

“We have to be mindful of that and get busy and take a look at it and find out exactly what it is because when you have catchers that up until today, because today they had little if any chance to even make a throw, they have done a terrific job. When people have attempted to steal bases, they don’t make it to second. But you can’t give them a running start like they got on two or three different occasions today.”

For whatever it’s worth, Pomeranz merely joined the parade of Rockies starters who have failed to do their job in the first two series of the current nine-game homestand. Jhoulys Chacin managed four innings, Jeremy Guthrie 3 1/3 and Juan Nicasio 2 2/3. At least Pomeranz made it to the fifth. He actually went deeper than anyone except 49-year-old Jamie Moyer (5 2/3).

On the bright side, thanks to the bullpen and offense, the Rocks are 3-3 on the homestand despite the woeful starting pitching.

“We’ve got to get more length from our starters because if we continue in the manner in which we’re going right now, at some point that’s going to become hurtful,” Tracy said.

A more cynical soul might suggest it’s already been hurtful. Nine games into the season, the bullpen is in survival mode.

It’s a long season. For Pomeranz, like the rest of the starting staff except for Moyer, there’s nowhere to go but up. Watching him develop should make for a compelling summer pastime.

“We’ve got probably, hopefully, another 30 starts with him,” outfielder Michael Cuddyer said. “So we’ll see how it goes.”

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April 15, 2012

At 38, the Toddfather can still walk off with the best of them

By Dave Krieger

Make all the old man jokes you want. The Rockies have played five home games on the young season. Jamie Moyer, 49, has given them their longest start at Coors Field. And Todd Helton, 38, has provided the margin of victory the last two nights with clutch late-inning heroics.

For all their talent and youth, the kids could learn something from these old-timers.

For much of Saturday night, it looked as though the Rocks would finally pay for the inability of any starting pitcher other than Moyer to make it to the fifth inning.

Monday, in the home opener, Jhoulys Chacin started and pitched four innings. After a day off Tuesday, Jeremy Guthrie started Wednesday and lasted only 3 1/3. Moyer started Thursday and went 5 2/3. Juan Nicasio started Friday and managed just 2 2/3.

The bullpen handled all this with aplomb. It pitched 6 1/3 innings of shutout ball in relief of Nicasio as the offense erased a 6-2 deficit. It pitched 3 1/3 scoreless innings in relief of Moyer. In fact, the bullpen had a collective earned-run average of 1.71 going into Saturday night’s monsoon.

But when no starter manages to go six innings all week, it catches up to you eventually. So the Rocks were encouraged when Chacin showed up with better command Saturday night than he had in the home opener Monday. He was far from dominant, but he fought through four innings, giving up one run and throwing 64 pitches in a steady rain that had delayed the start of the game for sixteen minutes.

With the Rocks leading 5-1 and three outs from an official game, umpire Mike Winters called for the tarpaulin. Seventy-one minutes of rain delay later, Chacin’s night was done and the bullpen was looking at yet another short start.

“The third and fourth inning was really hard raining and the fifth was pretty much the same, I think it was slower than it was in the third or fourth, so I didn’t know why they called it,” Chacin said afterward.

“The very unfortunate thing for us was the fact that the game was stopped after the fourth inning,” manager Jim Tracy added. “And the amount of time that we were down, obviously we lose Jhoulys. And if you back up to yesterday, you got 2 2/3 from the starter yesterday. And if you go back to Opening Day, we had a short start.”

Esmil Rogers and Rex Brothers had each pitched the two previous nights. Matt Belisle had pitched Friday night and two of the previous three. So when play resumed Tracy went with Josh Roenicke, who promptly surrendered a three-run homer to Arizona’s Miguel Montero. As the rain resumed its steady beat, Tracy was forced to call on Belisle again, trying to nurse the one-run lead that remained, thinking the game might be called anytime.

“That’s our job, is to take the ball when we’re asked,” Belisle said. “The biggest thing is the preparation before and the expectation and anticipation that we may have to do this instead of sitting around going, ‘Oh, gosh, we’re in there again?’ In other words, honing the edge a little bit with how much we throw before the game, monitoring that and just understanding that we may have to pick up some innings.”

Matt Reynolds and Belisle would have gotten through the sixth, but Troy Tulowitzki committed two throwing errors, losing his grip on two wet balls. One of the resulting baserunners scored, tying the game. From there, the Diamondbacks managed another run off of Brothers, pitching for a third straight day, in the seventh. They put up another off Tyler Chatwood in the eighth.

The Rocks had been three outs from two straight wins over the division favorites and a .500 record. Now they were looking at a 7-5 deficit with time running out. On a dank, miserable night, it looked like they were going to get a miserable result.

They got one back in the eighth on a single by Tyler Colvin, who had homered earlier, and a double by Eric Young Jr. But as they entered the bottom of the ninth, the rain cascading down nearly five hours after the scheduled 6:05 start, they still trailed by one. On the mound was Diamondbacks closer J.J. Putz, who held the longest active save streak in the majors, 28 straight, dating to last July.

Trying to come inside to leadoff man Marco Scutaro, Putz hit him in the shoulder. Scutaro, 36, went down, then scrambled quickly to his feet and sprinted to first pumping his fist and looking into the home dugout as if to tell his mates they weren’t finished yet.

But Jason Giambi popped out and Tulowitzki struck out. As Helton approached the plate, he represented the Rocks’ last chance.

“I was just trying to get a grip on the bat at that point,” he said. “It was raining pretty hard at the time.”

Putz’s 1-1 offering was a fastball up and in. Helton turned on it and lifted a towering fly ball down the right field line. Arizona right fielder Justin Upton ran to the corner and set up to catch it. At the last minute he flung his head back, watching it nestle into the stands above him just inside the foul pole. Helton jumped for joy and his teammates streamed out of the dugout in the pouring rain to greet him at home plate.

“I didn’t think I hit it out,” he said. “I thought I hit it a little too high. But I’ll take it.”

“When he hit that ball, I couldn’t believe he kept it fair,” said Belisle, one of Helton’s closest friends on the team. “And then seeing him round those bases, I was just smiling ear to ear. I know that after that rain delay, coming back up, mentally it can be a struggle sometimes. But he’s a big game player and he’s been swinging the bat really well. I don’t think he’s faced Putz that much. It was just an incredible swing by a great player.”

It was also the second straight night that Helton delivered the game-winner. His eighth-inning double Friday night off Arizona’s Bryan Shaw drove in Carlos Gonzalez to break a 6-6 tie.

“Yeah, what about that?” Helton said in his usual deadpan. “I keep it in perspective. There’ll be days where I don’t get the big hit.”

If the Rocks end up contending this year, this will be one of those early-season mettle testers to remember. On a nasty night, after a week in which the bullpen had picked up the starting rotation time after time, the relievers finally faltered and the offense picked them up.

Indeed, a lineup featuring such golden oldies as Helton, Scutaro and Ramon Hernandez went into Saturday night’s game second in the National League in batting.

“It’s the whole old-school meaning of team,” Belisle said. “It’s what we do, and we’ll have to do it again. The great thing about our group is there’s no egos, so whatever Skip needs us to do, we’ll do.”

Skip was suitably impressed.

“That’s a great win,” Tracy said. “I’ve seen signs of this from this club, and I mean that. They have a moxie about them.”

In his sixteenth season, Helton leads the Rocks in RBIs in the early going with eight. This game had nowhere near the significance of the nightcap against the Dodgers on Sept. 18, 2007 when a similar walkoff homer against Takashi Saito helped launch the Rockies’ miraculous run to the World Series. But Helton’s celebration on the base path and the mob that greeted him at home plate were reminiscent of that night.

Informed he had shown that sort of emotion again, Helton replied, characteristically, “Yeah, sorry about that.”

Belisle smiled.

“I was giving him a little joshing for that, too,” he said. “It’s a big knock in a big game. I’m glad that everybody’s putting emotion and focus into each game. I don’t care if it’s April. Win every night.”

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April 10, 2012

The lamest home opener in Rockies history

By Dave Krieger

Throughout their twenty-year history, the Rockies have been an above-average entertainment value in home openers.

There was the unforgettable first one, for example. Everyone remembers Eric Young hitting a leadoff home run in the bottom of the first, as if christening big league baseball in Colorado by smashing a bottle of champagne on the hull. Not everyone remembers Charlie Hayes hitting a two-run shot later that same inning on the way to a raucous 11-4 win over the Expos before an astonishing crowd of 80,227 at Mile High Stadium

Two years later, in another christening, they opened their new ballpark, Coors Field, with a four-hour, 49-minute, fourteen-inning marathon against the Mets. Down 9-8 in the bottom of the 14th, Dante Bichette hit a walk-off three-run homer that sent the most loyal among the sellout crowd of 47,228 — those who had not found an excuse to retreat from the cold — deliriously into the night.

In 2001, Mike Hampton pitched 8 1/3 innings of shutout ball to lead an 8-0 shutout of the Cardinals, providing temporary (and false, as it turned out) hope about the results of the team’s most expensive free agent signing of all time.

Four years after that, the Rocks delivered another walk-off in their opening act, a two-out, two-run homer by Clint Barmes in the bottom of the ninth to beat the Padres 12-10.

The next year, 2006, brought yet another walk-off win when Brad Hawpe drove in Matt Holliday in the bottom of the 11th to earn a 3-2 win over the Diamondbacks.

And two years ago, they cruised to an Opening Day 7-0 shutout over the Padres behind Jorge De La Rosa.

In all, the Rocks were 11-8 in home openers going into Monday’s 20th edition, and 8-4 since 2000.

So, all things considered, the twentieth curtain-raising was their lamest ever. For one thing, they had never failed to score in a home opener before the Giants’ 7-0 whitewash.

On a gorgeous Colorado spring afternoon, before a full house ready to rock Coors Field, the Rocks looked curiously unprepared to play, as if informed a game had been scheduled just minutes before it began. They made Giants starter Barry Zito look worthy of his seven-year, $126 million contract, which is otherwise considered one of the ten worst contracts in baseball history. At an altitude where breaking balls come to die, Zito’s curve ball completely baffled the Rocks. In fact, this was Zito’s first shutout in nine years and his first in the National League.

“Obviously, he pitched a good game,” Rockies first baseman Todd Helton said. “He got a lot of weak pop flies, kept us off balance. But we’ve got to put together better at-bats, and I think we will. I think nerves were a little involved. Hopefully the next game we’ll come out relaxed and swing the bats better.”

It wasn’t just the bats, although, admittedly, it’s hard to win when you don’t score. It was, as Mike Shanahan used to say, all three phases.

“We didn’t pitch well early in the game, we weren’t able to do a whole lot offensively and we had a miscue that helped lead to a three-run fifth inning,” manager Jim Tracy said, summing up the general incompetence succinctly. “I think tone to a game and tempo to a game is obviously very, very important, and the tempo that we set in the early part of the game was not good. Jhoulys (Chacin) struggled with his command throughout the time that he was out there.”

The Rockies’ winningest pitcher a year ago (11-14), Chacin threw 90 pitches in four innings, barely more than half of them (47) strikes. After leaving a pitch over the middle of the plate in the first and watching Pablo Sandoval airmail it into the right field stands for a two-run homer, he seemed to want nothing to do with the plate. He walked three batters in a row in the third, which turned the inning’s only hit, a single to right by catcher Hector Sanchez, into two more runs.

“The first two innings I feel pretty good,” Chacin said. “The third inning I just lost my focus and I was rushing all the pitches, my breaking ball and my fastball especially. I couldn’t get the ball to the plate and I walked a lot of guys in that inning . . . It’s a good thing I’ve got 30, 31 starts to go. I’m not going togive it up after one start.”

Meanwhile, the Rockies were batting as if hypnotized by Zito’s breaking balls. They lunged, they dove, they popped the ball in the air. The eight position players went down in order in the first three innings. The first of their four hits was a mighty twelve-foot nubber down the third-base line by Chacin himself. Marco Scutaro followed with a two-out single to center. This, it turned out, was their big rally of the day. Dexter Fowler fanned to end it.

The Rocks have now scored ten runs in four games. When I asked Tracy about this, he urged patience.

“I think it’s four games into the season and I think rather than push any kind of panic button or anything like that, we’re probably not the only club in baseball that right now is trying to find its way a little bit offensively,” he said. “I think the cure for that is to keep allowing a bunch of professional hitters to go up there and take at-bats and at some point in time, I guarantee you, we’ll get that squared away. There’s too many good hitters in this lineup for it to continue, in my opinion, for an extended period of time.”

For the sake of the paying customers, he’d better be right. Even prognosticators who didn’t think much of the Rockies’ chances this season thought they’d hit. Through four games, third baseman Chris Nelson is 0-for-10. Fowler is 1-for-11. Helton is 1-for-12. The team’s stars, left fielder Carlos Gonzalez and shortstop Troy Tulowitzki are batting .176 (3-for-17) and .214 (3-for-14), respectively.

“I actually felt good today,” said Helton, who went 0-for-4. “I know it didn’t show. Third at-bat it was tough to see. The shadows came into play. Fourth at-bat you could see. Put a couple good swings on the ball, but, you know, get ’em tomorrow.”

To complete Shanahan’s trifecta, the Rockies didn’t field well, either. The cherry on the Giants’ sundae was a three-run fifth against reliever Matt Reynolds that was built on a pair of errors — a dropped pop fly to short left by CarGo and a throw in the dirt to second from the hole between short and third by Tulo.

That’s six errors in four games, which is not a good ratio. Last year, they committed 98 in 162 and ranked ninth in the National League.

So, yes, it was only one game, but it was the sort of debut that can close a Broadway show in its first week. The sellout crowd of 49,282 booed the home team early and often.

The Rockies’ hardest-hit ball of the day was a foul line drive off the bat of Michael Cuddyer that hit Judith Reese, a woman celebrating her 69th birthday in the stands down the third-base line, in the head. The game was stopped so Reese could be removed on a cart normally reserved for injured players. Thankfully, she was treated for a concussion and released later in the day from Denver Health.

“I want to thank the fans, the paramedics and the community for their instant support,” she said, according to a news release by the hospital.

All in all, the opener was not exactly what the team marketing officer was going for.

“Yeah, it is disappointing,” Helton said. “Obviously, you want to go out and have a good showing Opening Day, and we didn’t do that. But in the end it is one game. We get a day off (Tuesday). It’ll be tough to sleep tonight, but after that you’ve just got to wash it off. It’s just one game. But yeah, with the excitement, the fans in the stands, it’d be nice to put together a better game.”

They’ll come back with Jeremy Guthrie against Giants ace Tim Lincecum on Wednesday. The early results don’t mean much for the outcome of the long season — the Rocks started 11-2 last year and finished 16 games below .500 — but a few signs of life would be nice.

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April 9, 2012

A little early to panic: Thoughts on the Rockies’ first series

By Dave Krieger

On Twitter, the modern version of Morse code, RIGHT NOW is all that really matters. Thus, from the first weekend of baseball’s new season, we get:

* Trading Jason Hammel was a huge mistake by the Rockies because he had the best start of his career in his Orioles debut, taking a no-hitter into the eighth inning.

* The Red Sox stink again, just like last fall when they blew a sure playoff berth. Shows what the experts know.

* The Mets are awesome.

* The Rockies’ roster is a joke, what was Dan O’Dowd thinking, and Jim Tracy still overmanages.

Slight exaggerations, granted, but I did receive these tweets, verbatim, after the Rocks lost two out of three in Houston:

“Offense overrated.”

“So far, Rockies are who critics thought they were.”

After three games. Out of 162. So let’s take a step back and remember a few things. Last year, the Rocks came out of the gate 11-2 and finished April at 17-8. They were under .500 by the end of May (25-29) on their way to a desultory 73-win season.

This is where the level-headed writer is supposed to urge fans to wait for a statistically significant sample size, but in two of the past five seasons, there has been no such thing for the Rockies.

In 2010, they had a .554 winning percentage, on pace for 90 wins, through 148 games, which seems like a pretty good sample size. Then they lost 13 of their last 14 to finish 83-79 (.512). So a team that looked good for much of the season turned out to be mediocre.

In 2007, as you may recall, exactly the opposite happened. The Rocks had a .514 winning percentage through 148 games, barely above average, then won 13 out of 14 (14 out of 15 if you count the one-game playoff with San Diego; 21 out of 22 if you could the NLDS and NLCS), to finish the regular season 89-73. So a team that looked mediocre for much of the season turned out to be pretty good.

All of which is to say sometimes you can’t tell with the Rockies even when you’ve watched them all summer. So one weekend in April is probably not enough basis for any significant conclusions. But let’s knock down a few misconceptions anyway:

* Jamie Moyer is not the No. 2 starter, even though he pitched the second game. You might think this wouldn’t need to be explained to anyone paying even casual attention, but apparently it does. Moyer, who throws nothing but junk because he’s . . . well, because he’s 49 years old . . .  was inserted in the rotation between hard throwers Jeremy Guthrie and Juan Nicasio in hopes he would serve as a change of pace. It may have worked, although not for him. After hitting against him Saturday, the Astros were largely lost against Nicasio’s heat Sunday. Starting Moyer in Houston also gives him one less start at altitude, where one winces at the prospects.

In any case, Moyer is the fifth starter, and a temporary one at that. The first four starters are Guthrie, Nicasio, Drew Pomeranz and Jhoulys Chacin. When Jorge De La Rosa is ready to return from Tommy John surgery — early June, the Rocks hope — he’ll take the fifth spot and Moyer’s grand Reminiscence Tour will be over.

Moyer made the club only because four younger candidates for the temporary fifth starter role — Guillermo Moscoso, Tyler Chatwood, Josh Outman and Alex White — failed to win the job in the spring. That’s disappointing, but if any of them starts pitching well, either in the minor leagues or from the bullpen, he can take Moyer’s spot any time.

* The fact that Pomeranz is not yet on the 25-man roster does not prove Rockies management is demented. Pomeranz, the fifth pick of the 2010 draft and the central prize of the Ubaldo Jimenez trade, pitched 101 innings in the minors last year and 18.1 in the majors. That’s . . . give me a minute to warm up the calculator — 119.1 innings pitched. Crunching the numbers on young pitchers who have run into arm trouble, the Rocks conclude that one red flag is a big jump in innings pitched from one year to the next.

If Pomeranz is as good as he looks — his minor league ERA last year was 1.78 — he would pitch 200 innings or more as a regular member of the rotation. The Rocks don’t want that. In fact, they don’t want him to pitch many more than 150. How to do that?

Well, treat him like a fifth starter, even though he’ll probably be their ace in short order. Skip him the first time around, since a day off allows them to go with four starters twice through the rotation. His scheduled start at Double A Tulsa is to keep him on schedule, but it should be a short one. I’m still suggesting you get tickets for Sunday, April 15, his first scheduled start of the season at Coors Field.

* The reason Jonathan Herrera is on the roster is not that he’s friends with Carlos Gonzalez. He, Chris Nelson and Eric Young Jr. may seem like way too many of the same sort of ineffectual player, but there’s one big difference: Rockies management doesn’t want to see either Nelson or Young playing shortstop or second base if it’s not an emergency. That means Herrera is the only defensive replacement for Troy Tulowitzki or Marco Scutaro that doesn’t make the brass cringe. Rockies fans love to hate Herrera because he doesn’t hit much, but inasmuch as the Rocks have committed four errors in three games, all by infielders and one costing them Sunday’s game, they probably want more defense, not less.

* Yes, admittedly, third base is still a black hole. While studly prospect Nolan Arenado begins the season at Tulsa (batting .533 through four games with an OPS of 1.344) the Rocks hope that either Nelson or Jordan Pacheco proves capable of being a placeholder. Each made a costly throwing error in Houston, Pacheco’s arguably costing them Sunday’s game, and they were a combined 1-for-11 at the plate.

If it makes you feel any better, Ian Stewart committed one of those sleepy Ian Stewart errors — dropping a ball as he transferred it from his glove to his hand — for the Cubs, although he is 2-for-8 with a run scored and an RBI through three games in Chicago.

But, hey, that ship has sailed. Stewart hit .156 last season and after eight years in the organization, the Rocks moved on, exchanging him for outfielder Tyler Colvin, another former first-round pick in need of a fresh start. One of three things is going to happen at the hot corner:

1. Nelson or Pacheco takes hold of the position, hits enough to stay in the lineup and learns how to throw to first.

2. Neither takes hold of the position and the Rocks, desperate, call up Brandon Wood from Triple A Colorado Springs, who is 4-for-14 through four games (.286) and hasn’t made an error yet.

3. Neither takes hold of the position and the Rocks, desperate, notice Arenado is batting over .500, figure he’ll be old enough to drink legally any day (his 21st birthday is a week from today), throw caution to the wind and call him up.

Even while losing the series in Houston, the Rocks saw some encouraging signs. Guthrie and Nicasio both gave them quality starts, pitching seven innings apiece. Rookie catcher Wilin Rosario hit a towering home run in his first start, confirming the power he demonstrated in spring training. The bats haven’t heated up yet, but newcomer Michael Cuddyer had five hits in his first series in purple and black.

But the main point I want to make is it’s only three games. The Yankees are 0-3. So are the Red Sox. The Orioles are 3-0, which is the biggest tell of all. So do what the Rocks did last night. Put the Houston series in the rearview and enjoy today’s home Opening Day.

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April 7, 2012

How Ubaldo’s suspension turned into a joke

By Dave Krieger

Ubaldo Jimenez was reportedly hit with a fine — amount undisclosed — in addition to his five-game suspension for throwing at Troy Tulowitzki in the final week of spring training. The fine, it turns out, will be his only punishment.

The five-game suspension will have no effect on Jimenez or the Indians.

Had the suspension taken effect at the start of the regular season, as intended, Jimenez would have missed the Indians’ first five games, costing him a start. But players can suspend a suspension by filing an appeal, and Jimenez did just that, never intending to follow through with the appeal.

Still, the maneuver served its purpose. It allowed him to take his regular turn, second in the Indians’ rotation, on Saturday, when he pitched 5 2/3 innings of perfect baseball against Toronto, lost his no-hitter, shutout and lead on one pitch in the seventh and exited without a decision. The Indians ultimately lost in 12 innings.

He dropped his appeal immediately after the game, meaning he will begin serving his suspension on Sunday, when the Tribe’s No. 3 starter, Derek Lowe, pitches. Because the Indians have an off-day Thursday, Lowe will be able to pitch out of order on his regular rest Friday, and Jimenez will be eligible to pitch Saturday, having sat out the required five games.

So the Cleveland rotation for the first ten games of the season: Justin Masterson, Jimenez, Lowe, Josh Tomlin, Jeanmar Gomez, Masterson, Lowe, Jimenez, Tomlin, Gomez.

Ubaldo never misses a start; he just switches places in the rotation with Lowe. That meaningless flip-flop is the suspension’s sole effect.

Rockies general manager Dan O’Dowd declined comment Saturday, saying the club was moving on.

By suspending Jimenez, the league office made it clear it believed he hit Tulowitzki intentionally in a Cactus League game last Sunday after the Rockies shortstop made comments critical of his former teammate earlier in the spring. And yet, other than whatever weight comes out of his wallet, neither he nor the Indians will be penalized for it.

Ubaldo’s manipulation of baseball’s disciplinary process makes the league office look stupid, and not for the first time during the Bud Selig regime.

Baseball has at least two ways to fix its process:

1. Adjudicate appeals immediately — say, within 24 or 48 hours — by use of video conferencing. Had this been done in Ubaldo’s case, his appeal would have been heard and presumably denied before the season began, meaning his suspension would have been served during the season’s first five games, as intended.

2. If the intent is to suspend a starting pitcher for one start, make the suspension eight games instead of five. That way, whenever it’s served, the pitcher’s team has to skip him in the rotation one time.

Ubaldo manipulated the system because the system let him. If the league office is paying attention, it should make sure it doesn’t happen again.

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