Breaking Down The Colorado Rockies 7-2 Start to the Season

The Colorado Rockies have shocked the baseball world nine games into the 2015 campaign, collecting a record of 7-2 including a three-game sweep over the defending World Series Champion San Francisco Giants.

After finishing the 2014 season with an abysmal 66-96 record, the Rockies have jumped quickly out of the gates with a perfect 6-0 record on the road, not to mention starting the season 7-2. This can be attributed a number of things: pitching, offense, defense – you know the drill. One aspect Colorado has struggled at for quite some time is in the pitching department. Colorado finished 29th in the entire league last season regarding bullpen ERA at an egregious 4.79. Flash-forward to the 2015 campaign where Colorado is fourth in all of baseball with an ERA of 1.91, including holding the opposition to a batting average of just .149.

Colorado’s bullpen line: 9 games, 3-1 record: 33.0 innings, eight runs-seven earned, six walks and 37 strikeouts. LaTroy Hawkins is responsible for five of those earned runs.

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LaTroy Hawkins has struggled mightily, which led Rockies skipper to replace the 42-year-old with Adam Ottavino and it has paid off. In Ottavino’s last two appearances, he has nailed down a perfect 2-of-2 in save opportunities, recording five strikeouts over two innings of work. Ottavino’s K/9 strikeout ratio right now is absolutely insane, posting 12 strikeouts over 6.1 innings of work. Who knows, Colorado could potentially be sitting at 8-1 if Weiss made the move to Ottavino sooner.

How about the eight-hole hitter DJ LeMahieu? He’s pretty good with the glove but is breaking out with the bat thus far in 2015. After going 2-for-4 last night in San Francisco, DJ extended his hitting streak to nine-games. Just your prototypical eight-hole hitter, ya know?

Colorado’s pitching all-around has increasingly gotten better. After finishing dead-last in the Majors last year in total team ERA (4.84), Colorado currently ranks second in the league at a dismal 2.41 ERA. Starting pitching consisting of Kyle Kendrick, Jordan Lyles, Tyler Matzek, Eddie Butler, and a spot start from Christian Bergman has kept Colorado in ballgames. And to think, I was one who wasn’t high on the rotation with Jorge De La Rosa out. De La Rosa is expected to return soon which is even better news for the first-place Colorado Rockies.

Nolan Arenado is stupid-silly with the glove at the hot-corner and has already made what appears to be already the Play of the Year.

The team is on pace to hit four-million doubles. Kidding, but not really.  Colorado currently leads the Majors in doubles with 29 – seven of those coming off the bat of shortstop Troy Tulowitzki. Tulo is currently slashing at a line of .343/.361/.543 with 12 hits in 35 at-bats. Troy is still looking for his first home run of the 2015 season, but it will come eventually.

Just a quick shout out to the Rockies bullpen consisting of Rafael Betancourt, Brooks Brown, Christian Friedrich, LaTroy Hawkins, Boone Logan, Scott Oberg, and Adam Ottavino for shutting the opposition down.

The Colorado Rockies (7-2) return to action Friday night where they begin a three-game set with the Los Angeles Dodgers in California. Kyle Kendrick takes the ball for Colorado against Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw.