Rockies beat the Angels, but lose Thairo Estrada to injury, and that hurts

The Colorado Rockies won an exciting Cactus League game on Friday afternoon in Phoenix. But, there was little joy coming out of the Colorado clubhouse.

On the same day the Rockies beat the Los Angeles Angels 4-3, as the Rockies scored runs in the seventh and ninth innings to walk away with a win, they also lost their newly-aquired second baseman for at least the first two months of the new season.

On Friday, Colorado manager Bud Black announced that Thairo Estrada will be out anywhere from 4-8 weeks with a fractured wrist. Estrada was hit by a pitch in Colorado’s win over the Texas Rangers on Thursday night, and received the bad news on Friday.

Estrada, who was brought in from San Francisco in the offseason, was hitting over .400 in spring training and looked to be the perfect partner for star shortstop Ezequiel Tovar up the middle. 

“He came into camp looking great, moving well,” Black said to MLB.com “He was having a good spring with the bat. It looked to be a really good fit. This is part of what happens in professional sports. It happens across the landscape of the game.”

Indeed, Estrada was really looking like a major addition to the young Colorado roster, and ultimately, he still will be. But it’s now on hold, and it looks like it’s up to veteran Kyle Farmer to take over second to start the season. 

And while Farmer will take over the starting role, the Rockies need to fill the roster spot, and need an infielder as Farmer was set to back up short and third as well.

Currently, Aaron Schunk comes to mind as a player who could back up the infield while Estrada is out. But perhaps more intriguing would be to call up Adeal Amador. The talented prospect was crushing it in spring training, but was ultimately reassigned to AAA two weeks ago in order to continue his progress with more starts and more at-bats. At 21, Amador looks like a can’t-miss prospect, but, Colorado seems to have decided to wait on him. That however, was before Estrada went down, and now, the landscape of the roster has changed, and Amador at least has to be in the discussion, along with Schunk and Owen Miller, who is also a non-roster player still with the club.

But, not matter which way the Rockies go with the roster, Estrada not being there on opening day is a big blow, as Colorado was really liking their infield of he, Tovar, and Ryan McMahon and Michael Toglia. For now, that combo will have to wait, and the Rockies will have to adjust.

https://roxpile.com/rockies-see-once-again-just-how-special-ezequiel-tovar-is-01

https://roxpile.com/thairo-estrada-proving-to-be-exactly-what-the-rockies-needed-after-all