Having learned the lesson this season of trying to play catch-up at Coors Field, the Colorado Rockies wasted no time in putting pressure on the Houston Astros and Bud Norris on Thursday night. The Rockies scored five runs in the first inning, thanks in large part to a three run home run blast by Carlos Gonzalez, and then for good measure added four more runs in the second to race out to a quick 9-1 lead and not look back on their way to an 11-5 victory.

For Gonzalez, the first inning home run marked his fourth straight plate appearance with a long bomb, a record shared by several players. The Astros had enough by the time he came up again in the second, as they intentionally walked him. Cargo would finish a triple short of the cycle and add a stolen base and three runs as he approaches the NL leaders in the three triple crown categories, and pads his own lead in the runs scored department.

Jeremy Guthrie displayed the kind of efficient mortality that seems to be needed at Coors Field this season, giving up five runs and twelve hits, but lasting seven innings while throwing only 99 pitches. He did this despite cycling through the Astros lineup three and a half times. The key for Guthrie was avoiding walks, which tend to compound the scoring and shorten the outing.

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CAR-GO-GO!!

GO ROCKIES!!!

While the Rockies display a more traditional home/road split in their record in 2012, no team in the majors has as wide a discrepancy in their performance at home (16-10) vs on the road (6-18) as the Astros. Tonight's opponent, Bud Norris, is perhaps one of the most obvious culprits for that split, the Astros ace is a sensational 3-0 with a 1.60 ERA at home in Houston, while he tanks to a 2-1 record albeit with a 5.40 ERA while on the road. The biggest symptom would be the BABIP spike to .360 while away from the Juicebox, which has opponents combining for a .305/.357/.475 while hitting him on the road. So the basic set-up is that we have one of the league's least travel friendly pitchers this year coming in to throw in the league's most unfriendly road pitching environment.

Add in the fact that the Rockies offense finally seems to have some momentum and this is such an obvious train-wreck in the making for the opposition that I, of course, have my doubts that the Rockies can properly wreck this particular train, and totally see the baseball gods smiting us with a 3-2 hairpuller.

Weeping, gnashing of teeth. O why do you hate us so, baseball gods?

GO ROCKIES!!!!

The Rockies clobbered Houston yesterday, but the win may have come at a price, as Troy Tulowitzki aggravated a nagging left groin injury. Tulo doesn't know yet if he'll require a DL stint. If he does go on the disabled list, DJ LeMahieu, who could have been expected to return to AAA Colorado Springs with Chris Nelson's imminent return will get a reprieve. For the team, LeMahieu plus Nelson is obviously a step down in production from Tulowitzki plus anybody, so the Rockies may need the good fortune of a well timed hot streak of an otherwise forgettable player to make up for it, and with the usual answer to that call (Jonathan Herrera, of course) already on the shelf, the pressure may be on the team's other utility infielders over the next couple of weeks.

The team's well aged 2012 curiosity, Jamie Moyer, has been designated for assignment and is expected to depart the organization, which will leave the rotation virtually unrecognizable to most in the national media. This embrace of a rebuilding year should be a good thing for the Rockies given the direction their season has gone, the young starters need to be accelerated in their development, and the only way to do that is to give them plenty of innings to learn the nuances of pitching in the majors and at Coors Field in particular. On that note and as a brief aside, I don't know if any reasoned person who cares for the future of the franchise's pitchers would actually suggest something like this, but to those without reason, I will say that turning off the humidor is a very bad idea right now. Particularly since Coors Field in 2012 is already playing like the humidor has malfunctioned.

While some are already seeing this as a death knell to the aged one's career, Jamie Moyer himself says that he's not yet ready to hang up the cleats.

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With the Rockies reeling through May, it's become next to impossible that a playoff run is in the cards for later this season. That said, there are several reasons why a rebound or improvement from players on the team are critical for the future success of the franchise.

Talent worth trading is talent worth keeping.

In all likelihood, there isn't going to be a separate category of players on the roster that aren't helping the Rockies with their play this year that would be desirable enough to other teams to return much of value. If the Rockies do decide to part ways with players like Jeremy Guthrie or Marco Scutaro, the return will mostly come in savings for the 2012 budget and likely not in players that help in the future. So if we're looking at a vision of 2013, the Rockies could really use turnarounds from these players over the next month and a half to enhance their value at the trade deadline if nothing else.

Troy Renck mentions that both Guthrie and Scutaro should expect to be on the block, a natural and obvious conclusion to the combination of their expiring contracts and the Rockies season to date.

We've seen promise, now we need to see growth

The players that would have real trade value right now are the players we probably don't want to give up, like Juan Nicasio, Wilin Rosario, Drew Pomeranz, Alex White, Christian Friedrich or Nolan Arenado. In terms of the three currently in the rotation, Nicasio, Friedrich and White, we've seen enough bright outings to have some encouragement that all is not bleak for the future of this team, but the rest of the season needs to see at least one, and likely two of these pitchers (or perhaps Pomeranz) take the next steps forward in efficiency and consistency to make quality 200 IP seasons in 2013 more likely. This is something Dan O'Dowd is keenly aware of, according to an article by Patrick Saunders, as well as in the aforelinked (this seriously needs to be a word for bloggers) article by Renck.

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One of the nagging things that frustrates me as a fan when the Rockies lose is their seeming constant inability to nab the last out in an inning, the last strike in an at bat, the last defensive stop needed before a situation cascades from bad to worst. Tonight provided several examples from the start. A better defensive third baseman than Jordan Pacheco would have made a solid throw on the first defensive play, but almost as troubling to me was his missed stop on the Brandon Phillips double later in the inning. A better pitcher than Jeremy Guthrie could have let the rookie's defense slide off without much damage and get out of the inning before giving up a three run blast to Chris Heisey.

Guthrie wound up giving many big hits to the Reds, seven for extra bases to be exact, including two home runs and five doubles. When he was finished after five innings, the Rockies weren't in the big hit allowed department, as Matt Reynolds gave up one more two out, three run blast to Ryan Ludwick after Esmil Rogers left him in a high pressure spot. Rogers got pulled after not being able to successfully finish a long Brandon Phillips at bat despite getting ahead 0-2.

Offensively, Pacheco made an admirable attempt at making up for his defensive failings by collecting three hits. Other supporting members of the lineup also were contributors, but the Rockies big run producing bats, Carlos Gonzalez and Troy Tulowitzki only went one for eight on the night. They should be mostly forgiven tonight for that, as with a 10-3 score, this loss was clearly on Guthrie and the rest of the pitching staff's inability to come through when needed.

Tomorrow the series wraps up with a rubber game featuring Jamie Moyer and a day game after a night game line-up that will lose Todd Helton but likely regain Wilin Rosario.

Time to wrap this thing up...

GO ROCKIES!

Given the starting pitching match-up, on paper, the Rockies may actually have the rare road advantage in this game. Leake has been pretty terrible for the Reds wherever he's pitched this season, and is the type of control RHP that Rockies bats have hit well, while Guthrie has been effective for the Rockies when on the road. Add in the Rockies somewhat out of the ordinary and continued ability to hit at Great American Ballpark, particularly relative to their performance at other away venues, and you have a combination that might be ripe for the team's third win in a row and first series win this month.

I'll be at the game, so I'll schedule overflows at 6:30 and 8:00 p.m. Mountain time.

GO ROCKIES!!!!

Jorge De La Rosa is on target to pitch this coming Sunday for the Sky Sox. The utility shuffle continues as well, as Chris Nelson should also return soon. In other third base/UT news, Jordan Pacheco's hitting streak reached nine games, as the note on the bottom of the above link indicates, but not mentioned there is that Pacheco's gone 15 games without a walk, making for a very empty average and an OBP that continues to hover below the .300 level.

The Rockies remain a very uneven team as far as getting on base goes, as while they have a few slots in the batting order that have been successful at it (third through fifth, mostly) and are overall the third best team in the NL in OBP, they also have several batting order slots near the bottom of the league (notably the first and second,) which helps explain the relative lack of crooked number innings and long rallies that we've seen this year. Innings like yesterday's fourth and fifth are needed in greater supply, particularly on the road. Both started with walks, and all three times the Rockies scored, Marco Scutaro got on base. Prior to yesterday's game, the Rockies had been 15th out of 16 in the NL in OBP from the second slot in the lineup.

Jim Tracy wants fans to be patient, which is actually probably decent advice as far as the pitching is concerned. The Rockies young pitchers simply aren't ready to be MLB competitive yet, and the two current veteran starters aren't good enough to make up for that. As for the offense, however, there are enough veterans with enough skill that the patience excuse doesn't hold as well. Here's hoping that yesterday's game is a sign that one of the season's biggest disappointments on that front, Scutaro, will finally get going.

The starting pitching remains the most critical issue for Troy Renck, albeit not critical enough to ask Tracy to put a timeline on how long it was going to take for it to gel into place. Despite the obvious setbacks this month, I'd argue that the Rockies pitchers are getting closer to that point, albeit, a brutal .365 BABIP given up by Rockies starters in the month of May may be obfuscating our ability to fairly gauge that. Some of that out of bounds BABIP will be the unreadiness for the MLB I mentioned, some will be Coors Field, and some will be in other variables (luck, weather, psychology, etc..,) that figures to rebound closer to normal levels at some point.

Off Topic

Jim Tracy and Clint Hurdle both say the game of baseball is going back to the fundamentals of the low scoring 80's era. In Tracy's case, the assessment seems to be wishful thinking, particularly at Coors Field, where the 2012 park factors indicate the run scoring environment is about as high as it's ever been, let alone in the humidor era. According to Baseball-Reference, the 127 and 128 batting and pitching factors respectively are the highest since 2000. The Rockies scored 968 runs that season, with nearly two-thirds of those coming at home.

Simply put, Tracy and the Rockies are going to have to expect slugfests at Coors in 2012, with the narrow 3-2 victories he seems to be looking for unreasonable and rare. Given the wide disparity between the way baseball is being played at Coors this year versus the way it's played anywhere else, the Rockies are essentially playing two separate sports and need to adjust for that. Tracy's game manufacturing runs by giving away outs may work on the road, but that three run homer will be what rules the day at Coors. With park factors this high, double digit runs should be the aim for this team while at home, which means outs should be at a higher premium and bunts close to forbidden, even for pitchers.

Big leads by the opposition shouldn't be seen as insurmountable, which kind of makes the seeming quit in the past two days' games all the more disappointing. In short, it's just a really bad sign about the quality of the team's offense to score only three runs in this series thus far. The key difference between now and the pre-humidor era was that the park's unique environment turned into a larger than typical home field advantage. The Rockies need to know their own crib if they want that aspect to return.

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Having said that, the latest news on Jorge De La Rosa and Drew Pomeranz points again to 2012 being an organizational rebuilding year, rather than one where they try to force a competitive team out of what they have before it's ready. Showing patience with JDLR in his recovery and with Pomeranz in his development still indicate expectations will be higher for the team in 2013 than they are this year.

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There are MLB teams worth watching in the major leagues, quality teams that give a combined effort on both sides of the pitching/offense equation to win consistently, or even teams that seem to have each others' backs and have the bats pull through when the pitching can't, or vice versa. Then there are teams like the Rockies, seemingly dysfunctional in their play. They dig themselves into big holes early and play without any semblance of pride late. They seem to have such a level of mistrust of their teammates getting the job done that they may as well be writing their own Ayn Rand novel. They let little problems explode into big ones, and let the big problems linger, ugly and unresolved.

This is not a team worth watching if you want to see a winning franchise as a fan. There is some value for those of us that like watching the development of prospects into major leaguers, as there are enough players with decent potential that going through the growing pains with them might pay off in a couple of seasons. But it's clear right now that the operative word in that last sentence for the 2012 Rockies is "pain". At the beginning of the season there was a chance this wouldn't be the case, but right now it's pretty clear that this will be a long and bumpy ride the rest of the way. There will be better times ahead, but it would be extremely unlikely for there to be enough of them to overcome this disastrous early May stretch.

As far as today's game, I didn't watch it. Thankfully I was on a plane, and had input the start time in my calendar incorrectly. I've never been so thankful to make time zone error as I am now. Apparently Wilin Rosario hit a home run and Christian Friedrich proved that Coors is still a tricky place to pitch in. It's not funny that Jason Vargas seemingly proved otherwise.

The Diamondbacks all nine of their runs in the last five innings, including six in the last two, to rally for a 9-7 winover a Rockies team whose comebacks came up a little short, and whose bullpen proved utterly useless. Rockies starter Juan Nicasio was effective albeit inefficient, giving up just one run in four and two thirds innings of work and left the game with a 4-1 lead. However, Nicasio couldn't make it through the fifth to be in line for a victory as the five walk, seven strikeout performance had already gone 105 pitches deep when Josh Outman was called on to relieve him with two outs and the D-backs threatening in the fifth. Outman's appearance started a string of unfortunate, and sometimes downright embarrassing work by every reliever in the Rockies bullpen save for Josh Roenicke, as the Diamondbacks wound up scoring in each of the last five innings.

The Rockies offense did well in keeping the game close even as the bullpen was imploding it, scoring three runs to tie the game at seven in the eighth, and putting the potential winning run on base with zero outs in the ninth, but a strikeout of Alex White and a groundout double play by Ramon Hernandez cut that rally off with no damage to end the game.

Troy Tulowitzki, Carlos Gonzalez, and Tyler Colvin had two hits each, Tulowitzki homering in the first inning to give the Rockies a two run lead, and Gonzalez had instrumental hits to lead off each of the last two innings for the Rockies. Jordan Pacheco hit a solo home run and Dexter Fowler an RBI triple and walked twice, and Marco Scutaro also walked twice with a hit as the offense really wasn't to blame this time around.

Josh Outman, Matt Belisle, Rex Brothers, Esmil Rogers and Rafael Betancourt all looked varying shades of putrid in their performances from the pen, with each allowing two or more baserunners in an inning or less. In the end, the flow of runs for Arizona was too much.

GO ROCKIES!!

The Rockies have a chance to move back into third place in the division, which actually probably deserves the NL Worst moniker thus far this season. Pinpointing why the division, which didn't have many off-season losses in talent beyond Heath Bell, but also added quality players such as the Rockies Michael Cuddyer and the D-backs Jason Kubel, would be so much more worse off than a season ago is tricky. The Rockies opponent today, Trevor Cahill, is another case in point where the talent exchange for 2012 would point to improvement, even if it wasn't so great for the long term.

While the AL Central still provides a floor for divisional futility we haven't yet reached, at least one of Colorado or Arizona need to turn around this year for the NL West to pass the NL Central again for "not as bad as it gets in the NL" bragging rights. Please let it be Colorado.

GO ROCKIES!!!

I'm still in California, and will be on the road in Mississippi early next week, so I probably won't be around to comment much for the coming week. June's looking about as tricky.

The Rockies offense has shown some signs of revival this past week, but there's still a lingering question of how lasting this uptick will be when the team returns to the road again. At any rate, for now Dexter Fowler and Jordan Pacheco have put footholds on positions that remain somewhat tenuous should they struggle outside Denver again. Chris Nelson has been sent to the DL to rest an injured wrist and might not return to the majors right away if the combination of Pacheco and Eric Young Jr. prove valuable enough.

Jamie Moyer's very presence on the roster seems to be a sticking point for many fans who want to see the Rockies go full on with a youth movement, but as yesterday's start showed, he's not going to give up that slot without a fight. The continued competition should still push the Rockies young pitching to actually prove valuable to the team before sticking on the roster. Christian Friedrich seems to be getting that point, I'm hoping other young pitchers of the team follow suit soon.

OFF TOPIC

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A week ago the Rockies were down but not out in the division. Today they're probably both, or at the very least far deeper in the weeds than they should be two tenths of the way into the 2012 season. It seems to be a pattern of the team to drop off a cliff in late April and early May before regrouping (sometimes, not really last year,) later in the month. I'm not entirely sure why it seems to happen so regularly at the same time of the year for the Rockies franchise.

As such, moves like Tyler Colvin potentially taking over center field from Dexter Fowler don't bother me as much as they should. I think it's likely the wrong call given that Fowler's much higher career walk rate should ultimately translate to higher OBP given the two players' similar strikeout tendencies and the power discrepancy isn't as big an advantage for Colvin this season. The Rockies are trying to do something, anything, to jump start an offense by inserting those few players that have seemingly adjusted to hitting on the road before the season does spiral beyond the reparation point.

Which leads me to Jorge De La Rosa, who as you've probably read or will read in the Pebble Report, was pulled early from a start in Tulsa with left forearm tightness. Barring a setback with this latest injury, De La Rosa's return is being looked forward to by many in the organization as a balm for the team's pitching woes that have plagued much of the season thus far. Add JDLR to a stabilizing Juan Nicasio, who showed signs of the dominance that he's capable of last night, and perhaps young pitchers such as Christian Friedrich and Alex White (if they can consistently perform as they did in their season debuts,) and the Rockies will suddenly have a fairly solid rotation.

Jeremy Guthrie will remain a final conundrum who also should improve as the season progresses, but with Jhoulys Chacin and Drew Pomeranz wanting back in, the Rockies may have options to choose from should he continue to struggle, just not options for where to stash Guthrie.

Much like the game wrap last night, no jump today, as I'm late.

Juan Nicasio struck out nine and allowed just five hits over seven innings as the Rockies lost 2-1 to the Dodgers on Saturday night. The Rockies offense failed to break through against the Dodgers Aaron Harang, getting only four hits overall and failing to score in a critical third inning when the hits did come.

Josh Outman took the loss for the Rockies in his season debut, facing only James Loney in the eighth, he gave up a single and then sat to watch Matt Belisle let Loney around the rest of the way for the winning run. Tyler Colvin hit a solo home run in the seventh inning off of Harang for the Rockies only score.

The Rockies best and only chance for a rally came in the third inning when Wilin Rosario led off with a double and Jonathan Herrera added another later the same inning with no resulting runs. While that part's frustrating, the bigger issue for the Rockies would be that there was only one real scoring opportunity against a pitcher like Harang.

Will the Rockies win? Will the Rockies be eliminated from 2012?

GO ROCKIES!!

Given the Dodgers lead in the division, this game is important to the Rockies, perhaps even more than usual after losing the first game of the series last night. One would figure Aaron Harang a beatable opponent.

GO ROCKIES!!!

I should be flying into LAX right around the time this game is ending, so the wrap-up post might be a bit late. Overflow threads are scheduled at 9:30 MDT and 11:00 MDT, you can either click on this game's tag or go to the Game Thread Overflows to find them at their scheduled post times, but it would also be nice if somebody posted a link in this thread itself.

The Rockies scored more runs at PETCO yesterday than they have in any road game in 2012; coincidentally, they
held a team meeting beforehand about scoring more on the road. In most of the Rockies road victories in 2012, the team scores between four and six runs. They are averaging just over nine hits in their road W's and usually pick up at least a couple of walks. If we look at the April 25, three hit, two run victory at Pittsburgh as the anomaly it should be, the magic number for times on base by the team would start somewhere around 11 (as was the case in the season opener at Houston) and go up from there. Running into outs, as the team did twice yesterday, would of course push the number higher.

Of course the rule's not perfect, the Rockies have lost once on the road when they've reached base safely 11 times, Tuesday night, in fact, but it does seem to be a good general rule of thumb to look for of a visiting team that has a good chance to win. The Dodgers, for instance, have won eight games while away from LA so far in 2012, and failed to reach base safely 11 times in just one of those victories, a 5-1 win at Wrigley in which they got on base 10 times. Similarly, the Diamondbacks have had eight 2012 road wins, and have pushed over 11 times on base in six of those, getting to 10 total times on base in the other two.

So while Jim Tracy talks about doing all the little things on offense, I hope the Rockies also keep in mind the one big thing: "Get on base." Fox, meet hedgehog.

OFF TOPIC

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So I'm going back to Cali, to Cali, to Cali, this weekend...

...you know, just in case you didn't notice.

The 2012 Rockies pitching problem, well documented. Pretty glaringly obvious.

Possible causes:

Trading Ubaldo Jimenez? Clearly no. If anything, Drew Pomeranz and Alex White are two of the team's best hopes for curing the issue. Jimenez would not be.

Trading Jason Hammel and Matt Lindstrom? Quite likely a contributing factor, yes. The Rockies sold low on Hammel, and brought in a pitcher that hasn't used his supposed veteraniness advantage or professional innings eating abilities to calm this rotation at all, and Lindstrom is certainly missed in the bullpen.

Not spending enough on arms during free agency? Yes and no, but mostly no. This is still a lot more complicated for Colorado than a lot of fans realize. The pitchers that would be the most clear helps to the staff weren't going to come here, and those pitchers that would have been legitimately open to a Rockies gig are a lot less predictable. Having Kevin Millwood, who has a 5.34 ERA in pitcher friendly Seattle, for instance, wouldn't be much if any of an upgrade on the current lot.

Not trading enough young prospects to get better pitchers? No. The Rockies didn't have the depth of prospects that Arizona, Washington or Cincinnati did to afford such a move. Let's hope they do next winter.

Not drafting well enough to have better pitchers/prospects in the pipeline? Yes, this is definitely a contributing factor. The last legitimate MLB starting pitcher (more than 30 career starts, or one season's worth) the Rockies drafted was Jeff Francis, and that happened 10 years ago. They've had very limited success with bullpen development from draftees as well.

Too many injuries? No. The Rockies haven't had more than their fair share in this department.

Take note that if the biggest two factors to the 2012 team's current pitching problems are the Jeremy Guthrie trade and a failure to draft MLB quality starters, that puts the blame squarely in the GM's office, albeit in the case of the Hammel trade, one I don't think many saw coming. That seemed like a loser of a trade at the time, but not the disaster for the team that it has become. Still, so far 2012 has highlighted Dan O'Dowd's weaknesses as a GM more than his strengths.

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At some point, Rockies pitchers will have to progress to the point of being merely "okay" if the team expects to make any sort of noise in the division in 2012. After another big lead evaporated into a 13-9 loss to the Braves, "okay" for the Rockies staff seems a promise even politicians would be wise not to touch in this election year.

Jamie Moyer started well enough, getting through five innings with minimal damage as the Rockies stretched out to an eight to three lead. Back to back home runs given up to Matt Diaz and Jason Heyward to start the inning diminished that "well enough" rating to something sub-par, and then after Moyer was pulled, a disastrous job in relief by Esmil Rogers continued that journey downhill to somewhere beneath NORAD. The Braves wound up pushing five runs across in the sixth, and scored another four in the seventh to once again put the Rockies offense to the test of digging out of an eight to twelve hole they didn't create.

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Go Rockies!

GO ROCKIES!!!

So, don't talk about baseball, I dare you.

The decision to demote struggling right-hander Jhoulys Chacin to AAA, while expected based on his year long slump, is still somewhat gutsy for a Rockies team that's already reeling from injuries and lack of performance elsewhere within the rotation and in their depth at AAA. The key measure to make these decisions is usually as much about the replacement player as it is the demoted one, but in the Rockies case with Chacin, there's not a clear improvement to be found, at least not until the five more scheduled rehab starts of Jorge De La Rosa have been completed. Instead, Colorado's banking on Guillermo Moscoso, who struggled in his Rockies debut and who many see as a smoke and mirrors pitcher unsuited to Coors Field.

This seemingly makes Moscoso the rotational equivalent of Chris Nelson, a situation that reminds me of the rehearsals of awards shows, where paper cutouts, body doubles or other substitutes for actors expected to be in the audience are used to help the hosts practice their riffs. Nelson and Moscoso are the paper cutouts of Nolan Arenado and De La Rosa, respectively, and the month of May would therefore be the Rockies rehearsal for the real festivities they plan later in the summer.

The issue, of course, is that May technically counts in the final standings, and the Rockies won't be able to use the excuse that they were just rehearsing in this month at the end of the year. It only takes a memory of one year to know that lesson. Last season, an 8-21 May set the stage for the team's later purge of much of the roster.

More links about some of those purged after the jump.

Off Topic

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