Further Thoughts on Last Night’s Rockies Victory

Last night I got to attend an opening weekend game for the first time. It’s pretty dumb that I’ve been a Rockies fan as long as I have been and am just now getting around to that, but this is also the first opening day I’ve been in Denver since I was a kid. So it was a dream come true to be in the stands for last night’s game. As such, I enjoyed the game on more of an emotional level than a technical one. Still, a few observations.

Encouraging Things

Betancourt and Rosario finish another game with success. Chris Humphreys-USA TODAY Sports

Pitching/Defense: Stop the Bleeding

It’s been great to see every member of the starting rotation work himself out of a jam in these first five seasons. Jorge De La Rosa gets less credit than the others since his jams wound up being more costly, but in general the damage has been limited to a run or two and then the bleeding stopped. There has been some good defense as well. Last night, Carlos Gonzalez made a fantastic catch in left center that had him fully laid out. There were no messy double play attempts (in fact, some would argue that there were two clean double plays in the 4th inning), no dropped pop flies, no passed balls – Wilin Rosario only has one so far this season! It’s those little things that really add up, and that’s also what was lacking the past few seasons.

Hitting: Up the Middle

The 3-4-5 spots, currently held by Cargo, Troy Tulowitzki, and Michael Cuddyer, have finally come into their own. These guys were responsible for driving in all 6 runs the Rockies scored last night. They hit back-to-back-to-back singles in the 5th that led to 3 runs. The sad news is, Todd Helton is turning into a bit of a rally killer in his possibly final season, but as long as the middle of the order is producing, we’re always in the game.

Discouraging Things

Baserunning: Just Stop at First

Of course, we’re all on the lookout for baserunning errors. And last night there were two singles that the runners tried to turn into doubles and instead turned into outs. Of course, Dexter Fowler‘s really should have been a double. The whole stadium and Walt Weiss expressed their disapproval when Fowler was called out at 2nd. Still, better safe than sorry. Unless it’s clearly an extra-base hit, let’s just stay at 1st and cut our losses.

Fan Behavior: NO MORE WAVE

In my section, 144, there was a man last night who seemed to feel it was his duty to start the wave once or twice every inning. Mercifully, the other sections refused to be complicit in such an atrocity, but it still happened, over and over and over again. What’s worse, that or the man who decided to jump the fence and run through the outfield late in the game? All I know is, we cannot become Phillies fans. We just can’t.