Troy & Todd have strugled while Cargo dominates. What will it take to get the Rockies on track?
- Image by fialyn via Flickr
In this 2010 MLB season, one is at a loss when trying to analyze and explain the Colorado Rockies.
Sitting at 20-21 and 4 games back in the highly competitive NL West (the Padres, Dodgers and Giants all are within 1.5 games of one another), the Rockies can find some small consolation in knowing the bulk of their home games and divisional schedule remain. But the season is a quarter of the way through and time is running out for this team to find its identity.
Listing and repeating the numerous paradoxical offensive and pitching statistics at this point would be redundant.
Behind an offense that has shown a propensity for front-running, games have become fairly simple affair.
If the starting pitching is solid and the Rockies can find an early lead, they win. If the starters struggle or the defense shaky, the Rockies offense is incapable of coming from behind from even the smallest margins, if they are even allowed the opportunity by the bullpen to attempt a comeback.
Saberticians are of no use in trying to diagnose the woes of this ballclub, for the solution lays not within lineup juggling, bullpen matchups or stats about who has a higher 2-out basehit percentage, but with the fundamental premise of playing as team.
Night after night, the Rockies players look singular… un-unified and even robotic at times.
Though the game of baseball is based on individual matchups, the juggling of the lineup has clearly led to a lack of understanding of player’s roles within the offense. Carlos Gonzales, the team’s best offensive player at this point, has hit leadoff, 3rd and 5th, sometimes all within a week. The lack of hitting consistency can clearly be traced to the middle of the order where Todd Helton and Troy Tulowitzki share a troubling stat… the two have only combined for 3 home runs.
The pitching has been there, at times and even on days when staff ace Ubaldo Jimenez isn’t pitching.
Yet, injuries, weather delays leading to doubleheaders, and roster juggling have led to a strange brew in the rotation and bullpen and the lack of a defined closer is becoming glaringly apparent. The defensive play in the field can almost at this point be classified as a detriment. One of the top fielding teams in baseball the last couple years; this year’s Rockies seem to lack the sizzle of a slick fielding team. Balls are miffed, muffed and bouncing into the outfield and the team’s fielding leader, Tulo, appears to be pressing.
All of the aforementioned issues are particularly magnified on the road.
Watching the games in the late innings, one can almost feel the Rockies grit their teeth in anticipation of the error in the field or mistake over the plate that will break a tie or balloon a one-run lead into several.
Yet, despite all of the above, there is hope. Hope in the form of the possibility of a return to 2007 form by the now healthy Jeff Francis.
In the form of the best pitcher in baseball, U-Ball, who is having a year that is reminding people of Bob Gibson in 1968. In the form of Taylor Buchholz, Huston Street and Jorge De La Rosa, all of whom are projected to return from the disabled list in the next 3 weeks to finally add stability and potency to the bullpen and rotation.
And hope in the form that this team, a team that has played so well down the stretch in recent years, will understand that all their hopes and high aspirations cannot be realized unless they start to play as a team, unified as Colorado Rockies.
