Rockies Rally But Fall to Reds

Guillermo Moscoso is finding his stride in camp. Credit: Andrew B. Fielding-US PRESSWIRE

I love a good 9th-inning rally. Of course, it’s always bittersweet when it doesn’t result in a win, but still, it’s what makes baseball worth watching till the very last pitch. One swing of the bat can break the whole thing open. It wasn’t quite enough for the win last night, but it was enough to keep this game from being a total failure.

Dazzling

Chad Tracy was both hero and villain last night, but I’ll go ahead and categorize him as dazzling since the rally wouldn’t have gotten as far as it did without him. With 2 on and 2 out in the 9th, Tracy launched a Carlos Fisher pitch to deep right field for a ground-rule double. This allowed Brendan Harris to score and moved Andrew Brown to 3rd, and it made the score 4-2. Wilkin Castillo came to the plate next and hit a single to right. Brown scored easily, but Tracy underestimated the arm on Donald Lutz and tried to go all the way home. Chad: Don’t make the last out of the game at home plate, unless the bases are loaded and you have nowhere else to go. Just don’t do it. But I won’t hate on you too much, since the game would have ended even earlier than it did without you.

MUCH better outing for Guillermo Moscoso today, and that’s encouraging, because he could very well find himself in the back end of the rotation come April. He went 3 innings and allowed just 1 hit, striking out 3.

Disappointing

I really hope that Alex White is not seriously being considered for a rotation spot at this point. He’s just really not ready, and we can’t blame that on Coors Field anymore because he’s not pitching there. Salt River has been no kinder to him. In 4 innings last night, he allowed 4 runs on 4 hits and 3 walks. Too many runners, too much not making the pitch he needs to make. The first pitch he threw plunked Drew Stubbs. White has some work left to do. I will give him this though: With 2 outs in the 2nd, Joey Votto reached base on an error, and White then walked Scott Rolen to load the bases. This could very well have been the beginning of a bad, bad situation, but then White struck out Jay Bruce on three pitches. So that’s worth mentioning.

The batting average of Dexter Fowler is plummeting more every day, and it now sits at .045. Last night he was 0-for-3 with 2 K’s. Please, Dex, whatever you did in Colorado Springs last year to work all this out, do it again, because we’ve got less than three weeks till the season starts.

Also 0-for-3 last night: Jonathan Herrera, Carlos Gonzalez, Michael Cuddyer, Ramon Hernandez, Chris Nelson, Brandon Wood, AND Nolan Arenado. I don’t want to think too much about that, so let’s just be glad Mat Latos is no longer in the NL West.

The Dodgers come to Salt River Fields this afternoon for another in-division match-up. I’ll be doing play-by-play for this game via my Twitter account, so follow along!

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