Colorado Rockies: Gerardo Parra creating offense at stunning clip

Gerardo Parra just keeps hitting for the Colorado Rockies. In fact, he’s hitting almost as well as anyone in baseball over the course of this season.

Yes, he wasn’t supposed to be Colorado’s Opening Day starter in the minds of many, but an injury to David Dahl took care of that. Sure, he’s missed a chunk of time with an injury of his own. However, when he’s been on the field, Parra has taken care of business at the plate.

Don’t look now, but the Parra who was so vilified in the minds of Rockies fans last season, saw his average creep ever higher on Wednesday during an 18-4 matinee rout of the San Diego Padres at Coors Field. Three singles in his first three at-bats of the day made it 10 straight plate appearances where he had reached base. According to Elias, that’s only happened seven other times in franchise history.

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Since coming back from a quad injury on July 7, there has only been one day in the month where Parra hasn’t had a hit. And it hasn’t just been one hit per game. A 3-for-3 night in Tuesday’s 9-7 win over San Diego pushed his average to .516 for the month. A 4-for-5 day against San Diego on Wednesday elevated his average to .556 in July. As Thursday’s off day dawned, he was 20-for-36 at the plate with 12 RBI this month. Wow.

That comes after he logged a .571 average in five June games before he suffered his quad injury. Yes, he’s been about as hot at the plate as the weather that settled over Denver for the entire Padres homestand.

Overall, Parra has a .364 average in 184 at-bats this season. That month he missed with the quad injury is keeping him from qualifying for MLB’s batting leaders. If he did qualify, he would be second in MLB behind Justin Turner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, who is hitting .372 heading into Thursday.

Last year, it was Parra for President … and that was during a down season for the nine-year Major League veteran. This year, he could be voted in over Emperor Palpatine in honor of the upcoming Star Wars night at Coors Field on Saturday.

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There was talk as Parra neared his return to the Rockies earlier this month how important he was to the team, both on and off the field. Every day, Parra seems to be proving that theory to be true a little bit more.