(Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times/MCT)
If this isn’t rock bottom, what is?
Monday night, the Rockies were wretched, terrible, almost unbelievably bad—unless you’ve been watching the team all month.
The Colorado Rockies set a team record on Monday against the Los Angeles Dodgers, usually a good thing, it was anything but this night. The Rox recorded 14 hits, an incredible amount compared to most May games, yet they scored only one run—a solo homer by Ty Wigginton.
Twice in the game the Rockies worked the bases loaded and couldn’t convert to score a single run.
In the seventh inning, Troy Tulowitzki came to the plate at one of those most crucial moments, with the bases juiced and his team needing him to come through with a hit. Instead, Tulo grounded into a double play, ending the inning and the Rockies’ scoring threat.
Monday night was a microcosm of the Rockies’ month of May, Colorado can’t do all the things needed to win at the same time. When they hit, they can’t pitch and vice versa. And even when they can hit, they can’t string them together to push players across the plate for coveted runs. They lost 7-1 that night, then 8-2 Tuesday night to the Dodgers, who surpassed the Rockies in the standings with the wins, pushing Colorado (24-29) down to fourth in the NL West.
The Rockies’ pathetic play has been so bad it’s laughable.
If this isn’t rock bottom, what is?
Of course, the two most recent losses to LA are only the latest in a month of May that had Rockies’ fans yelling “mayday!”
If the Colorado Rockies peaked early, at 11-2, and eventually 17-8 after April, they’ve plummeted down to Death Valley, going a worst in the majors 8-21 in May.
While losing 20-plus games in a month for only the fourth time in team history, the Rox were outscored 140-122. And since May 5th, the Rockies have scored three or runs less 17 times, the most in baseball.
Colorado’s offense is beyond struggling, they’re in a slump so severe it threatens to bury the team and their chances of contending for anything this season.
In a lineup that has the potential to be one of the most powerful in all of baseball, the Rockies have only two players hitting above .275 (Todd Helton .307, Seth Smith .304) and it shows.
Carlos Gonzalez, who was nothing short of amazing in 2010, started 2011 slower than a snail, but he looks to be snapping out of it. CarGo could only hit one HR in April, but he went yard seven times in May, hitting .282 in the month.
Like Gonzalez, Troy Tulowitzki hasn’t lived up to expectations this season, and unlike CarGo, Tulo’s May was much worse than April. Tulo’s in a funk, his month of May was stinkier than a skunk—his batting average was a terrible .209—play like that will not cut it for Colorado.
If this isn’t rock bottom, what is?
The Rockies must have their two best (and most expensive) players crushing the ball; knocking deep doubles, sometimes stretching those into triples and hitting home runs. At the very least, Tulo and CarGo have to come through in the clutch, getting a base knock with RISP.
Of course, while hitting has been a major concern for Colorado, it’s not the only one.
The biggest blow to the Rockies in the month of May was losing their best starter in Jorge De La Rosa to a torn Ulnar Collateral Ligament. De La Rosa was a strong 5-2 with a 3.51 ERA when he went down—he was holding the Rockies’ starting pitching together—his arm is lost for the rest of the year and likely part of next season as well.
De La Rosa, who was never more than a pedestrian pitcher in eight seasons as a major leaguer, was enjoying the bet season of his entire career and it’s hard to believe that he will be back pitching at the mile high level he was early this season.
If this isn’t rock bottom, what is?
Compounding De La Rosa’s injury is Ubaldo Jimenez pitching like a shadow of his former self.
Simply stated, Ubaldo has bee terr-Ubaldo this season. His command isn’t there, which is wild because neither is his velocity. Jimenez is a fireballer, he pitches best when he’s scaring opposing batters, making them wonder where the next pitch will be, hoping to the heavens they aren’t hit by a three-digit bullet. But Ubaldo is a good 5-7 MPH off his usual fireball fastball and his control isn’t there as he tries to locate pitches.
What’s wrong with Ubaldo? Everyone has asked. Is he injured? His hurt cuticle kept him from two starts early, but is something else hampering him now?
Whatever the reason, Ubaldo’s pitching has been ridiculous, terrible, absurd and breathtakingly bad in 2011, exactly when they’ve needed him the most.
Ubaldo was the unquestioned ace last season, but he hasn’t even been Colorado’s fifth best starter this year—he must step up, scare batters, throw strikeouts and record wins for the Rox to contend.
Like the starters, Colorado’s bullpen has been inconsistent and anti-clutch. The Rockies’ pen was strong, actually the best in baseball after April, now it looks more like Swiss cheese than a group of shut-down pitchers.
First Filipe Paulino was kicked out of town, rightfully so, he never pitched well in the Rockies purple with many chances. (Days later he went to Kansas City and pitched 4.1 innings with 0 hits given up, talk about adding insult to injury.)
Then the Rockies finally made a move that they were hesitant to pull the trigger on, they cut ties with Franklin Morales. Morales showed life, he showed potential, but it was over two years ago. Whatever happened to Morales is unknown, what is known is that the man couldn’t throw strikes, couldn’t even come close to the zone a majority of the time, and the pen got better in his absence.
The Rox called up Matt Daley for another chance to pitch in The Show, and Bruce Billings was brought up from Colorado Springs to pitch in Denver as well. While neither have been great (eight ERs in 8.0 innings pitched combined) they are certainly a step in the right direction following Paulino and Morales.
One more glaring weakness for the Rockies all season has been the void of consistency at third base. The Jose Lopez experiment failed and he was designated for assignment in May, and Ty Wigginton has been a good fill-in, but he lacks the quickness to make the tougher plays. Still, his bat has been one of the more consistent for Colorado recently, and it would definitely benefit the team to move him to the utility player role he was originally brought into Denver to fill.
(AP Photo/Chris Carlson)
So what can Colorado do?
Chris Nelson is a spark; he was Monday with his solid hit and his spectacular snag up the third base line, and on Tuesday he intelligently ran home with great speed on a popup that barely left the infield by Mortensen.
EY Jr. has been another spark since his call up from Colorado Springs only five days ago. EY is hitting 7-23 (.304) with the Rockies and he’s now 3-3 stealing bases this season for the Rockies, the rest of the team has only two steals since May 16th. EY is a threat while running the bases, he’s a solid defender at second (can he play third too?) and he’s good at getting base knocks.
Nelson, EY Jr. and Jonathan Herrera are young studs that give the Rockies speed and dangerous ability on the basepaths, they instantly increase the depth if Colorado moves Wigginton into a variety of different roles as the utility man and having them all on the team gives the Rockies their top-25 players to choose from on any night.
Beyond the young guys, the veterans (Tulo, CarGo) have to come through at the plate or it will seal the Rockies’ fate.
Ubaldo Jimenez must take charge, he’s got to regain his dominance and Colorado’s other starters have to step up if Colorado wants to contend.
And something else, coaching must be better—from baserunning errors, to teaching how to bunt and stop making silly switches—or Colorado is really sunk.
For the Rockies who have hit rock bottom, there’s nowhere to go but up from here, and they have a lot to improve upon. So Colorado, get to work.
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Disagree? As always, comments are welcome.
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7 comments
Dan Garfield
June 1, 2011 at 3:22 PM (UTC -6)
Matt Daley should be sent down. He’s a great story, but his stuff is not good enough to last in the majors. I know he was here both in 2009 and 2010, but there’s a reason he was in the Springs this year. Lets see what Brothers can do.
Logan Burdine
June 1, 2011 at 3:27 PM (UTC -6)
Dan, if they don’t bring Rex Brothers up soon…well, I’ll probably just bitch about it. Regardless, they have a potentially special lefty reliever dominating AAA and they won’t bring him up because they don’t want to start his arbitration clock. Pisses me off.
Cole C.
June 1, 2011 at 6:08 PM (UTC -6)
The fact that the Rockies haven’t been able to score is bad enough, their inability to score late is worse. Only 3 of the Rockies 241 runs this year have come in the 9th inning. If they want to turn around their home record, that needs to change. Also needing to change for any chance at success is their 0-4 record in extra innings. Losing in extras is demoralizing for any team, losing the only game you have been able to score in extras is even worse. (for details see Logan Burdine’s May 21st post) in that game the Rockies blew 3 saves. (Betencourt wouldn’t have been in line for the save but he’d have gotten a hold if he just held on) It’s to the point where i almost wonder if CarGo shouldn’t hit lead-off to try to start something, anything for this team to hang its hat on.
Special Ed
June 2, 2011 at 8:10 AM (UTC -6)
Here’s a simple question.
This Rockies team has always demonstrated a tendancy to play in streaks. They win 20-21 or they drop 17 of 25. Tulo is a great example of that. He plays the best couple of weeks in 80 years last September, comes out crushing the ball in April, then makes Ian Stewart look good in May. Ubaldo 1st half of 2010 has an ERA under 1, but is pedestrian after that.
Helton is the exception, as he’s usually very consistent.
You expect the team will feed off of one another to a certain extent. But the ups an downs on this team are greater than any other team I’ve ever seen. At the end of the year, you can expect Tulo will be hitting about .290, maybe better. But that means he’ll have to have a month hitting over 400.
Why?
Logan Burdine
June 2, 2011 at 5:04 PM (UTC -6)
Might be a simple question, but I don’t know of a simple answer to it. It fascinates me how organizations can carry an identity from year to year. Maybe it’s mental. I have no clue.
Drew Lorentzen
June 4, 2011 at 3:53 AM (UTC -6)
Let’s talk about the wasted at bats by Fowler, the inability to get a hit with RISP and let alone a two out hit with RISP. These ROX have been overrated coming out of the gate. I was like many that believed the pieces were finally in place, but it is clear that neither Carney Lansford or Don Baylor can make this team hit on the road, or at home for that matter. CarGo has reverted to the beginning of his rookie year, swinging at pitches down and away, while he looks at strikes right down the middle. Ianetta takes way too many backward K’s and even Smith and Helton have come up with RISP and done average at best. Tulo might be the most streaky player I’ve ever seen. The bullpen blew six games in May, starting pitching is average at best. Add it all up and the Rox are a middle of the pack team. They will not get that big hit 48/50 times, while the opposing team seems to break out of all there pitching and hitting slumps against the Rox. (See Rasmus, Vogelsong, Saunders, Pelfrey, Padres, D-Backs (2 x 8th inning or later rallies), Brewers (lost 4/5 before they swept) and Cody Ross) This season is done with this ragtag group of players.
don quixote
June 6, 2011 at 3:09 AM (UTC -6)
LOL ROCKIES