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Colorado Rockies: What the injury bug could make the Rockies look like

By Noah Yingling

ST PETERSBURG, FLORIDA - APRIL 01: Ryan McMahon #24 of the Colorado Rockies reacts to a hit during batting practice before a game against the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field on April 01, 2019 in St Petersburg, Florida. (Photo by Julio Aguilar/Getty Images)
ST PETERSBURG, FLORIDA - APRIL 01: Ryan McMahon #24 of the Colorado Rockies reacts to a hit during batting practice before a game against the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field on April 01, 2019 in St Petersburg, Florida. (Photo by Julio Aguilar/Getty Images) /
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In the past week and a half or so, the Colorado Rockies have been annihilated with injuries. These injuries have decimated the Rockies team, which is already struggling, to a team that is a shell of what fans hoped.

Sunday’s 12-6 shellacking of the Rockies to complete the series sweep for the Dodgers was the end of a really bad week for the Colorado Rockies. They were inundated with injury after injury and just during the Dodgers series, the Rockies had to place two players on the disabled list and they had two more players leave the game on Sunday.

These included infielder Ryan McMahon (hyperextended left elbow) and left-handed starter Tyler Anderson (left knee inflammation) all headed to the 10-day injured list in the Dodgers series and Rockies left fielder David Dahl (oblique) and shortstop Trevor Story (right calf) both had to leave Sunday’s game due to injuries.

They have joined first baseman Daniel Murphy (fractured finger) and left-handed reliever Jake McGee (left knee sprain), in the past 11 days. They have joined left-hander reliever Chris Rusin (upper back discomfort) and right-handed pitcher Antonio Senzatela (right heel infection but he’s rehabbing in Albuquerque) on the IL.

The Rockies are 3-7 in the first ten games and the injuries are obviously part of the reason but the healthy Rockies haven’t looked much better.

As Rockies fans on Twitter have already noted, Ian Desmond is hitting an abominable .086 through the first ten games.

Garrett Hampson is hitting .083. Charlie Blackmon (who’s offensive numbers improved a lot with his 2-for-2 with 2 walks, a run, and a RBI on Sunday) has struggled a lot in right field defensively (already Trevor Story (before his injury last night) is hitting .222 with 12 strikeouts in 10 games.

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Pitching wise, Chad Bettis was shelled in both of his starts this season (11.88 ERA in 8 1/3 innings) and Jon Gray‘s changes have not shown, at least in his results, as he has an ERA of 5.68 in his two starts. The combination of DJ Johnson, Mike Dunn, Harrison Musgrave, and Carlos Estevez all have three or more appearances and have ERA’s of 4.91 or higher (all but Musgrave have ERA’s higher than 6.23).

All in all, the Rockies offense has played to an offensive slash line of .216/.282/.336, all of which are 13th of the 15 National League teams. In addition, they are 13th in runs and home runs and their OPS+ is a mind boggling 57, which is 43 percent below league average. On the pitching front, the Rockies have an ERA of 5.11 (12th in the NL) and an ERA+ of 96 (four percent below league average).

Now, obviously, this is a worst case scenario situation, but if Dahl and Story each have to go to the disabled, this could be the defensive lineup that the Rockies have (I won’t even begin to speculate on how the lineup would look). The new players are in bold and the recent additions to the Rockies roster are in bold and italicized.

Next. Josh Fuentes’ chaotic 450-mile journey to his MLB debut. dark

Either way you slice it, it’s not a good situation for the Rockies. We should hear more on David Dahl and Trevor Story’s injuries today but as of now, they are listed as day-to-day. However, Ryan McMahon was “day-to-day” with his elbow injury and within a day, he was on the injured list.

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