What do bloggers have over the guys who are paid to write or talk about the Rockies? They can be critical. Bloggers aren’t paid by the club and therefore don’t have to be as nice. Even the beat writers for the Denver Post can’t be fully critical of the team because the team could get offended and limit some of their access.
As a Cubs fan I recall the 2004 season in which Steve Stone and Chip Caray were forced out of their contracts with the Chicago Cubs because they were critical of the team after the magical 2003 season (that ended too abruptly). They were especially hard on Moises Alou and there were reports that Alou actually went into the clubhouse during the game and listened to what Stone and Caray had to say about him. He wasn’t pleased and played a large part – as I recall it – in getting rid of the TV guys for the Cubs.
Keep that in mind the next time you hear Drew Goodman inexplicably praise a poor performing Rockies player.
Saturday night on the way home the 850 KOA guys were clamoring over the pitching matchup of Johan Santana and Jamie Moyer…as if Moyer is in the same class as Santana. Then again before the game on Sunday I heard Goodman say something similar.
On Saturday after Guillermo Moscoso threw batting practice to the New York Mets Patrick Saunders tweeted the following:
Take away homer by #Mets Duda and #Rockies Moscoso hasn’t been hit that hard, but singles have killed him. Mets lead 6-4.
I don’t know what Saunders was watching but Moscoso was giving up line drives to the outfield all game. Sure he gave up a home run and that could be viewed as the only well hit ball but he was also saved by a Michael Cuddyer diving grab in the first and two nice plays by Dexter Fowler.
According to the detailed play-by-play on Fangraphs.com Moscoso allowed seven fly balls (three of which were of the line drive variety), four ground balls (two for hits), five line drive hits to the outfield, a line drive home run, an infield line out, one walk and five strikeouts. At least his K:BB ratio was 5:1 which is really good, but by my count he allowed 10 line drive batted balls and that means there were 10 well struck baseballs in five innings of work. That is not good and his six runs were not luck, the Mets hit him and hit him hard.
Moscoso had an ERA of 7.91 at AAA (in two of his four games he allowed seven runs) and that ERA isn’t an mis-leading.
What was Saunders watching?
Today Moyer gave up four runs in the first inning and in only five innings pitched he allowed 11 hits. ELEVEN! Again, they weren’t fluky hits. Meanwhile Santana allowed only two hits in six innings work. Which pitcher performed better? Do we really need to discuss why Santana v Moyer in 2012 shouldn’t be touted as a potential pitcher’s duel?
I will say that I would have never guessed that Moyer could strike out seven batters in a single game and he did that today. And as opposed to Moscoso Moyer recorded more ground ball outs than fly ball outs.
!!Good news!!
Todd Helton hit a grand slam today to tie the game in the eighth inning and Carlos Gonzalez smoked a clothesline over the wall to tie the game in the tenth inning to tie the game again. Seeing the Rockies come back late is something they didn’t do – ever? – in 2011 and this year does have a bit of a different feel late in the game.
…but they didn’t win…so…ya…it was a nice, sunny day at Coors Field today.
The Los Angeles Dodgers are coming to town to start the week and the Rockies really almost need a sweep to keep up with Matt Kemp, Clayton Kershaw and the Dodgers as the are already 5.5 games back. At this point it seems much more likely that the Rockies get swept and if so they will be 8.5 games out early in May. Need a strong outing from Juan Nicasio to get the series off on the right foot.
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4 comments
Mike
April 30, 2012 at 9:54 AM (UTC -6)
Sadly, Moscoso and Moyer getting hit hard if not completely lit up was entirely predictable. I suppose it speaks to recent failures in the draft that Moscoso would be called up for this start rather than somebody else; by his past stat lines Moscoso looks to be an absolute treat for opposing offenses, especially at Coors. But, then, O’Dowd seems to have been intent upon picking up #4-5-6 starters with extreme flyball tendencies all of the offseason…
SapperDrew
April 30, 2012 at 12:07 PM (UTC -6)
Mike – Couldn’t agree with you more. There was a lot of clamoring over the pick ups of Guthrie, Moscoso and the other dude. The off-season talk was about how young the pitching was and how talented they were. Seems to me that if you get 2 x pitchers for Seth Smith, they can’t be that good and dumping Hammel and getting Guthrie wasn’t much of a step up. Bottom line, Nicasio needs to emerge and Chacin, Pomeranz and Moyer are #4-#5 pitchers at best. Chacin can’t control his pitches, Pomeranz gets lit up like a candle and Moyer will only be effective for so long. Add on top of that another poor performance by deKs in CF and Tulo’s consistent failures during the clutch and this is going to be a long season. The Rox went after Blake, he didn’t pan our which most everyone knew except management. Betting that your 3B problems would be solved with a 38 year old coming off neck surgery was a joke. This team has failed to live up to expectations and now they are in another re-building year. Pathetic!
Jordan
April 30, 2012 at 1:26 PM (UTC -6)
Agreed. Basically, if you have a 50 year old pitcher in your starting rotation, who can’t even touch 80 mph, you know your’e going to suck. Honestly, the only two acquisitions I like this year are Cuddyer and Hernandez. They both are great on offense and solid on defense. Scutaro has sucked so far, inconsistent at bats and when he does hit its typically just a single. Guthrie has struggled quite a bit, Josh Roenicke hasn’t shown me much, and our bullpen will be doomed the rest of the season as long as Rafael Betancourt is the closer. Plain and simple, the guy just isn’t good. Casey Blake was a questionable signing, and Colvin I really haven’t seen much of. Sigh*, another long year in store for the Rox.
TroyF
April 30, 2012 at 6:56 PM (UTC -6)
I still like Drew a lot. I think he has two or three starter written all over him. What scares me is:
1) Herrera hitting second.
2) Moyer, any pitcher from triple a, any bullpen pitcher not named Belisle, Brothers or Betancourt. (yesterday aside) Guthrie is Guthrie. Chacin is Chacin. They are both mediocre. Nicosio has potential. The rest of the staff continues to be a train wreck.
3) injuries (this team is flipping old)