Tracy hangs his head because his team is awful
The Rockies fell to 30 games below .500 after yesterday’s gut wrenching loss to the hated San Francisco Giants. With the team up 6-4 going into the eighth and Matt Belisle coming into the game and the bottom of the Giants punchless order most thought the game was over. But this is baseball and each team gets 27 outs.
The bottom of the eighth started off with Carlos Gonzalez losing an easy fly ball in the sun and having it drop in front of him. I have said it before and will say it again: if CarGo is such a wonderful defender than making a catch in the sun shouldn’t be so difficult and going back to those games in Pittsburgh earlier in the year when he lost balls in the sun it starts to add clarity as to why his defensive ratings are so poor.
The botched fly ball was followed by a double, a walk, Marco Scutaro popping out to shallow left (Rockies fans are used to seeing that) and then Melky Cabrera singled in the first run of the inning with a grounder up the middle that bounced off of the pitcher’s mound and just out of reach of a diving Josh Rutledge. Jim Tracy summoned Rafael Betancourt to hopefully get out of the inning but he allowed a sac-fly and then the KO blow from Hunter Pence: a three-run blast to left center field.
The Rockies walked off of the field after the eighth inning down 9-6 after surrendering five runs in the inning and it isn’t a shocker to anyone that they failed to mount any sort of attack in the top of the ninth. Rox lose and fall THIRTY games below .500.
This team is just awful. We know this. But another pitiful display by the team should put Tracy on the hot seat (I wish I could say that it is making the seat hotter). In the bottom of the first inning Angel Pagan was on third base with no one out and Scutaro at the plate. Scutaro does what he does and grounds the ball to third base and the Rockies had Pagan leaning towards home. In what should be second nature for a big league team in August (or April for that matter!) the team had Pagan in a rundown. Pagan got out of the rundown by sliding back into third base safely after Wilin Rosario monkey-f***ed the baseball and didn’t get it to the guy covering third fast enough and Pagan was safe (sorry, my language is deteriorating faster than my patience for this pathetic franchise). Meanwhile Scutaro hustled into second base. Instead of one out and a guy at first the Rockies defense left Alex White with two runners in scoring position and none out.
The Rockies are not a well coached team. If the Broncos would botch something as easy as covering a punt in week 13 John Fox would catch hell by the Denver media, but the Rockies are in such a state of dysfunction at this point that screw-ups that epic are hardly noticed and are actually expected from this team.
From the start and the star left fielder not being able to make a play – albeit a difficult play but he is a MAJOR LEAGUE OUTFIELDER, right? – to a team not being able to perform a basic rundown this team just can’t do anything right and this falls onto the coach.
The Rockies are now 30 games below .500 and on pace to win 59.2 games. Even if we round that up to 60 wins it means the Rockies will lose 102. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the team struggle even more down the stretch and lose 105 or 106 games. The Houston Astros lost 106 games in 2011 and the Pittsburgh Pirates lost 105 in 2010. Pretty much every year a team (or two) loses 100+ games in a season (the Kansas City Royals also lost 106 in 2005) and it seems the Rockies, along with those Astros, will be the two teams losing 100+ in 2012. The real question is if the Rockies can be epically awful and lose 105 games or more?
The team has never lost more than 95 games in a year (lost 95 in 1993 and 2005) but it seems they will most certainly best that number this year.
And somehow Dan O’Dowd and the rest of the front office is safe going into 2013? Mother $#@*!
You can follow Travis on Twitter @TravisLay_BSB …he doesn’t tweet about the Rockies much anymore…
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10 comments
Jeremy
August 13, 2012 at 1:20 PM (UTC -6)
Cargo’s play to get whomever out at home was why people view him as defensively superior.
His lack of focus and effort is what caused him to lose the ball in the sun.
Not sure where to draw the line, but I agree the coach and this horrible season contribute to his lackadaisical efforts on defense. He isn’t a poor defender, however…his motivation just need to catch up with his talent.
His offense, on the other hand, is scaring me more. He seems intent on proving to people that he is just a product of Coors Field, and if he continues to hit (or not hit) like he did this last week, I won’t be able to watch the games anymore.
Brendan Giles
August 14, 2012 at 8:06 AM (UTC -6)
CarGo appears to be dogging it, but I think it was Rutledge’s play in the sun, not CarGo’s. It looked as if Rutledge lost it in the sun and CarGo had too much ground to cover (not that he was running hard, but still). I also agree with Jeremy that his hitting is the real problem. Before last night, he was taking bad at bat after bad at bat. He has done this throughout his career where he just mails in at bats for extended stretches. He reminds me of a baseball version of Carmelo: supremely talented, but lacks the natural competetive drive and needs someone (Tulo mainly, but the manager would be nice too) to constantly light a fire under his butt to keep him focused.
JD
August 14, 2012 at 10:51 PM (UTC -6)
I keep saying Tulo is our best player, and there’s always someone telling me no, it’s Cargo. Where are they during Cargo’s slumps, though?
JD
August 14, 2012 at 10:53 PM (UTC -6)
Did Cargo just have the worst four-for-four game in history today (8/14)?
He hit four singles. On the first, he got two RBIs and then scored a run. He should have quit after that.
On the second, he was out stretching at second. Lazily. Shouldn’t have tried.
On the third, he was picked off first. Then Rosario hit a home run.
On the fourth, he was caught stealing second.
Three outs on the bases. And for an encore? Lazy fielding of a double up the line in the 9th leads to a runner scoring from first.
Brendan Giles
August 15, 2012 at 7:40 AM (UTC -6)
I noticed that too. He had a DJ LeMahieu style 4 for 4! Only with boneheaded base running. He is clearly swinging the bat better the last couple of games, but the base running blunders were awful. IMO, the pick off was the worst: walking leads can work on inexperienced pitchers that are too focused on the hitter. Not on guys like Randy Wolf. The second caught stealing was a great throw by Maldonado. I thought he had the base easy (good jump, pitch in the dirt) but Maldonado threw a strike to second. Tough break on that one. CarGo can be awesome, but I agree that the best player is Tulo.
Kevin
August 15, 2012 at 9:48 AM (UTC -6)
The box score shows Cargo caught stealing twice and picked off once. Can someone please find out the last time a player has ever been essentially caught stealing 3 times in one game? This has to be in unassissted triple play nad perfect game territory.
Travis Lay
August 15, 2012 at 10:09 AM (UTC -6)
BR.com does this. I searched and there have been 14 instances since 1918 in which a player was caught stealing 3 times or more in a single game (13 CS 3 times and 1 player was CS once). Unfortunately I forgot my login and cannot find it so I dont have the names/dates, but it has happened — very rarely.
Kevin
August 15, 2012 at 2:56 PM (UTC -6)
Ladies and gentlemen, your 2012 Colorado Rockies.
Brendan Giles
August 15, 2012 at 3:35 PM (UTC -6)
I did not see the beginning of the game, but I think the box score doubled up the picked off and one of the caught stealing. Wolf did pick him off, but because he broke for second base, it goes down as a caught stealing. Not sure why the box score would double it up, but I only saw him get thrown out twice: once by the first baseman and once by the catcher (as if ‘only’ getting thrown out twice makes it better).
JD
August 15, 2012 at 8:52 PM (UTC -6)
You’re right. It was a double-up. But being called out stretching a single to a double in a third sequence is just as bad.