Colorado Rockies

After they avoided arbitration by signing outfielder Seth Smith to a one year, $2.4 million deal, the Colorado Rockies dealt him to the Oakland Athletics for starting pitchers Josh Outman and Guillermo Moscoso. 

Imagine you are in the stands at Coors Field for your average game in the middle of July. You watch the Rockies play one of the seemingly hundreds of games on the schedule against the San Diego Padres. The Rockies are relevant but hardly outstanding. It is the rubber match of the series, and you figure if they are a contender they should win a series against the Padres at home. The game is tied in the bottom of the 6th inning. With a runner on 2nd base, the Padres pass on Troy Tulowitzki and up strolls the #5 hitter [...]

The Rockies have always been an offensively proficient team. The overlap of Larry Walker and Todd Helton makes that an indisputable statement, even while more mediocre players have occasionally filled out the roster. Coors Field is a hitter’s park, and generally speaking the scouting and development department has done a perfectly adequate job finding good hitters. So we expect our team to score runs. Still, excellence deserves recognition. On top of that, the Rockies have not had an especially excellent year. That makes those performances worthy of recognition stand out even more. Note: In some ways this was even more [...]

Yesterday, the Rockies left South Florida. Thank God. I loathe watching Marlins’ home games. It’s like watching high school baseball. Attendance for yesterday’s contest was 11,442. That’s roughly 30% capacity at whatever the hell they call that stadium. I’ve never been there, but, by all accounts, the place is a dump. Still, the poor amenities are no excuse. Marlins’ faithful ought to be ashamed of themselves. Florida is a young, talented club on the rise. Staff ace, Josh Johnson, is arguably the best pitcher in baseball. Hanley Ramirez is the best shortstop outside of Denver and outfielder Logan Morrison is [...]

Ubaldo Jimenez was the best pitcher in baseball in the first half of last year’s baseball season. Many deemed him “Ubaldo The Great,” for his microscopic early season ERA and the fact that he was virtually un-hittable. This season, however, he has been “Ubaldo The-Not-So-Great,” for his gargantuan ERA, and the fact that he has been very hittable. Let us compare Ubaldo 2010 to Ubaldo 2011, because the contrast is rather stark. Ubaldo’s ERA after 3 games in 2010 was a dental-floss thin 1.29. Ubaldo’s ERA this year is an eye-opening 6.75, the worst earned run average for any starting [...]

Jason Hammel is a grinder. All year long he has been lacking his best stuff, but he has kept the Rockies in every game. Last night, in the Florida humidity, Hammel finally put it all together. He had command of his fastball and his off-speed stuff was sharp. Jason’s end result was 6 2/3 innings, 7 hits, 1 R, 1 BB, 4 Ks. So far this season, Hammel has been a different pitcher. He’s striking out fewer hitters, but he has dramatically increased his ground ball percentage. The additional grounders have lowered opposing hitters’ BABIP against Jason and he is [...]

The Rockies have taken their talents to South Beach.  Tonight through Sunday they are taking on one of the NL’s hottest teams, the Marlins.  Florida has won six of their last seven to move within half a game of first place.  They’ve done it with solid pitching – a 3.16 team ERA – and a collection of some of the finest young talent in baseball. This series will provide an excellent test for the Rox.  Despite going 7-1 on the season’s first road trip, many are still worried about the Rockies’ road performance.  Those eight games came against league lightweights, [...]

It’s been alleged that the Rockies are struggling on offense. The Post’s Jim Armstrong wrote an entire piece about it today. Jimmy is wrong and so is anybody else that agrees with him. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that their offensive production has been borderline outstanding. According to Armstrong, the Rox are struggling offensively because they have a low team batting average — .257 (9th in NL). Here is what Jimmy had to say about it: “The story within the story of their 13-5 start: The Rockies haven’t hit much. They’re hitting .257 as a team, [...]

Admittedly, this post is not timely. I wanted some time to digest last night’s loss. It was as ugly as they come. However, this game is being made into something bigger than reality. Yesterday I called this the biggest April series ever played by the division rivals. The key word in that phrase was April. This is a big early season series, but it will be long forgotten come September. Clipped from: mlb.mlb.com (share this clip) The panic this morning is evident. Fans and beat writers are freaking out over Lincecum’s dominance and Esmil’s poor showing. I couldn’t make it [...]

The Rockies have been in existence for nearly two decades, and I don’t remember ever claiming that the Rockies are the best team in the league. Even when Rocktober enveloped downtown Denver, and the Rockies rattled off those unprecedented winning streaks, they were never regarded as the league’s best team. Even when they went to the World Series, the Rockies were always considered an underdog, and they embraced that role. They have never won their division, and never been nationally recognized as a league titan. Until now. Although the season is still in its infancy, and the Rockies still have [...]