The Rockies' bats have failed an outstanding starting pitching staff in 2010. It may take a big trade (Prince Fielder?) to save Colorado's 2010 Season.
- Image by Steve Paluch via Flickr
Reality is starting to settle in and it’s not pretty.
The bottom line is the 2010 Colorado Rockies are just not good enough.
This is a deflated, injury-riddled shell of the last year’s bunch, minus any semblance of timely hitting and solid defensive play.
Already sitting 6 games back of the surprising San Diego Padres, the Rockies will go to San Diego with the daunting task of winning games in a ballpark where they infrequently hit the ball and seldom win. The prospect of losing all three games (despite Ubaldo Jimenez’ scheduled start on Monday night) is very real.  The fate for such costly failure would be the Rockies finding themselves on late Wednesday night sitting an almost insurmountable 9 games back of the division with three superior baseball clubs to leapfrog to fulfill lofty pre-season expectations.
The NL Wild Card, the Rockies’ competitive salvation in 2007 and 2009, will not be so easily claimed with late-season heroics this year. Not with the Braves, Mets, Phillies, Marlins, Cardinals, Reds, Dodgers, Padres and Giants all executing far more effectively and far more consistently than the Rockies. For those of you keeping score at home that is 10 teams fighting it out for 4 playoff spots, and one of them will almost certainly trade for pitchers Cliff Lee or Roy Oswalt in the next 10-14 days.
With a mere 87 games remaining, the Rockies need to act and they need to act now.
The list of shortcomings on this suddenly flawed and underachieving team is long, but dramatic improvements could be made by doing the following…
- Send Franklin Morales to the minors. The talented but errant left-hander is now a documented liability; blowing saves, blowing holds, and failing to keep a losing game close. This is no longer 2007 and this is no longer a developmental ballclub. Morales should work out his woes in AAA and have his fate decided in the off-season or in Spring Training next year. He should not be recalled in September for any reason, under any circumstances. The experiment, thus far, has failed.
- Trade. Somebody. Anybody. Trade either for Florida’s Dan Uggla or Baltimore’s Ty Wiggington, either of which would instantly become the club’s homeruns leader, if not also the team’s RBI leader. Trade for Prince Fielder; gamble some of the team’s young stock of pitching on this Scott Boras represented mercenary. No one will blame the Rockies for having no part in Boras’ well-known desire to make Fielder one of the highest paid players in all of baseball. But to waste the Colorado Rockies best starting pitching staff in franchise history on a mediocre offense would be utterly shameful, if not deeply ironic.
- Sit Todd Helton. I’m not going to waste words describing what this man has meant to the franchise or Rockies history. But to argue that the lineup wouldn’t be better served from a power standpoint is now statistically ludicrous. It would just as preposterous to contend that, defensively, the Rockies would be better served with Hawpe, Iannetta, Mora or even Smith at first base. But a .250 singles hitter who has no chance to lace a double or smack a 3-run homer is costing the team games. Period.
- Hope. Hope that Jorge De La Rosa can return from the DL and be what he was before his torn tendon: one of the best pitchers in baseball. Hope that Tulo comes back and finally provides the offensive leadership that led some to call him the favorite for the NL MVP in the preseason.
And, most importantly, hope that in a mere three days it’s not too late for the 2010 Colorado Rockies.
