druidlove.com sports

I remember earlier this week hanging up my lost poster blog entry. Well, I didn’t know what was going on with my Rockies. However, something happened… I’d like to thank whoever brought the team back. Some might lead it to Jason Giambi and Todd Helton, who had their own pep talk with the players. But whatever it was, there is a start of a good thing.

After July 28th’s game against Pittsburgh, the Rockies had dropped 8 games in a row, and were now 9 games out in the division. But then… as many Rox fans lost hope, a miracle happened. The Rockies, under Ubaldo Jiminez turned it around. Remember Ubaldo’s last appearance was a bomb that reflected the Rockies in general since the all-star break. And he did give up the first run. But then the Rockies fought back with 1 run in the 1st, and 4 in the 2nd. Ubaldo was in true form, and got his 16th win. The Rockies treated us to tacos for the first time in a while.

Sure, that was a needed win to snap a dangerous losing streak. But could it be sustained? After kissing the Pirates goodbye, the Chicago Cubs strutted through town. A classic team to many pre-1993 baseball fans. And Jeff Francis and the Rockies were ready for the challenge. Needless to say that Jeff was in spectacular form. And through 7 innings, the Rockies were leading 5-2. And then came the 8th inning. The Rockies had runners on first and 3rd and 2 out. What happened after that went crazy. 11 consecutive hits, 12 runs. Melvin Mora pinch hit twice and got hits. 18 batters were sent to the plate in the entire inning, and the bases were loaded before Ian Stewart finally got the 3rd fly out. Many of these set Rockies club records, if not setting MLB records. I think Lou Piniella was ready to go retire then and there. The Rockies won 17-2 and now had a 2 game winning streak.

If you thought that was a fluke, well tonight’s game was also just as bizarre. The end of non-waiver trade deadline came and went with the Rockies standing pat. Would this be a good move? It indeed was. Jason Hammel was the starting pitcher, and through 7 innings, he held the Cubs to 2 runs and threw 76 pitches. Incredible. The real star was Carlos Gonzales, who happened to start with a single and a triple. His 3rd at bat was a double. The 4th at-bat was a sacrifice fly and a RBI. But he was not done here. The score was 5-2 at this point. Unfortunately, Hammel left the game after 7.1 innings and would end up with a no-decision, thanks to a 3-run home run by Derrick Lee. That was all the damage done by the Cubs. But this allowed CarGo to get another at bat at the bottom of the 9th. The first pitch was a walk-off home run. This also completed his cycle, as the Rockies win 6-5.

Having a 3-game winning streak is definitely a good sign. In fact, having some wild surprises is also good. This, in combination with the Padres losses brings the Rockies to 7 games back. As history would show, whenever the Rockies have an 11-game winning streak, the Rockies make the playoffs. This is a great start. But more games will certainly help. And all at the same time, when the team relaxes and performs like it knows how to naturally, there is still hope. This is all I want: perform well. The road to playoffs is always rocky, but it’s still passable.

I don’t know what happened to our Colorado Rockies baseball team since the All Star break. The team, after having an extra day off, went on an 11 game road trip against Cincinnati, Florida, and Philadelphia. The team came back with 2 wins: 1 against the first two teams, and none against Philly. This is not a great outlook for the team. Some blamed heat and humidity, others blamed lack of Tulo and Helton. But while this happens, Ubaldo falters in his last 2 appearances, and in the last outing lasts only 3 innings and gets a loss. This is a very bad sign when the Rockies #1 ace cannot show his form he used to have.  The road trip was the 3rd worst in Rockies history.

Now, this is their first game back home. Tonight’s opponent is the Pittsburgh Pirates. The worst in the NL. The bounce-back game the Rockies needed. And yet, it didn’t start like that. Huston Street took a ball to his stomach during batting practice and had to be rushed to the hospital before the game even started. Fortunately, he wasn’t badly injured and was released to rest at home. But even if he hadn’t been hurt, Street was a non-factor in today’s game.

Yet, today’s game was the first in a while I could watch it completely. (Yeah, I have work that hates the Rockies’ schedule.) And while I tried to watch it, the Rockies couldn’t give me the motivation to do so. Already down 2-0 in the first inning, the Rockies couldn’t produce… until the 5th. The back-to-back homers by Hawpe and Barmes tied the game. Hawpe at 1st was decent.  Tulowitzki back in the game was good, though he was 0-4 and had an error. But Pittsburgh fought back, got a run in the 6th, and again a HR off of Beimel in the 8th.

What was the biggest disappointment was the lack of offense and brains executed by the Rockies. The Rockies were 0-6 with RISP. But the biggest mistake was executed by Ryan Spilborghs in the 8th inning. Spilborghs had a double easily, but pressed his luck towards 3rd, and causing the 1st out. There’s a reason why one of the cardinal rules of baseball is to never make the first or third out at 3rd base. And for Ryan, seeing that the play was in front of him, and even the 3rd base coach giving the stop sign, he should have known not to even try it. This is a clear mental mistake, and is more of the same mistakes this team has made in the past 11 games. There’s a time to play aggressive, and there’s a time to play smart. And this team is just playing like they’re desperate. The team is lost.

I no longer see the same Rockies team that we had in the first half of the season. Sure, there were injuries during this time, but the team managed to produce when needed. My team is lost. If anyone can find my Rockies team, the smart and productive team I had, please let me know. I’m offering a reward for them. Please contact 303-867-5309* with any information leading to discovery of the real Colorado Rockies team.

* Ok, that’s not my real phone number… but you get the idea.

Ok, the news of the day: I opened up a new forum to talk about sports. The forum is now located at forum.druidlove.com. The reason is two-fold. First of all, I have a lot of friends on twitter that are also Rockies fans. However we’re all trying to talk about trade rumors, and not everyone is mentioned in each post. So you have people having side conversations, and if you mentioned everyone, you’d have like 2 characters to say your peace. haha. The other factor is that if we’re talking about trade rumors or certain topics, it’d be nice to have an archive so you can chime in when you need to. Twitter has a poor search feature, and at current, the search is broken. A forum would be perfect.

So, I’ll echo the forum site again, so you can go to it, and join in on the chat.

forum.druidlove.com

The only ground rule is to be respectful of others.

As I improve the appearance of the forum, I am also going to improve the appearance of this journal as well. I should be able to get to this by the weekend. Bear with me as I get these updated.

I’ve already mentioned the At Bat app, though MLB has upgraded their app again. I have already mentioned earlier that I am not disappointed with their upgrades. Indeed, this is the case.

While this upgrade includes support for the All Star game happening tonight, there is another feature added to the app to my knowledge. (Remember, I have an iPhone, and cannot say this is the same in the Android, Blackberry or even iPad versions.) The new “At the park” feature is now active. The menu option was removed when the regular season started, but was reinstated with the 1.2.0 upgrade. I’ll present the screenshots from my iPhone here:

The list of all the MLB parks here

This screen shows you the list of ball parks in MLB. It also shows you the nearest ballpark(s). In my case, Coors Field is 4.3 miles as the crow flies from my house. Clicking on one of these parks (Coors Field as an example) will present this screen:

Here is my ballpark

This tells you simply the location of the park.
Note the “Check In to Game” button. It’s grayed out as there is no game. What I understand is that this button activates 2h prior to the game. Once you click on this, you get to see ballpark maps, seating location/concession stands, and even access to exclusive MLB in-park cameras. Don’t know if there is a distance factor here if this button unlocks. But you can test this as early as tonight’s All Star game.
The Twitter button is also interesting. Click on this and you see this screen:

MLB's twitter client, for the team

(This is a 1.2.0 screen. Updated to say “Tweets about Rockies” instead of “Tweets containing #Rockies”)
This is another Twitter app built in to At Bat. If you have a twitter account, you can easily log in to see replies to you and tweet along. You don’t need a twitter account to see any comments related to the team you’re viewing.* This client is very basic, but it works to my knowledge. I have had limited testing with this, but I can point out the features here:

• To view replies, you do need to give MLB At Bat connection permissions. I don’t see this as a problem.
• The Replies button will search for posts mentioning your username (in my case @druidloveRox). This may mean you will miss some people who have their tweets private, as the search will not pick them up.
• An interesting quirk: Some teams tweets may not be picked up properly. For example, Arizona will use the tag #D-backs (which breaks rules on conventional hashtags not using special characters) and Red Sox will not pick up tags with #redsox in it.  What about the White Sox?
• The compose screen shows a huge character remaining count (Twitter has a 140 character limit), but is very basic. If you want to contribute to the Rockies, you must manually add the tag #rockies to your tweet
• I’m too used to Tweetie (now Twitter for iPhone), but there is no easy way to reply, retweet, or DM people. You need to manually add the @ or d username in your tweet.
• Clicking on Angel stadium yesterday or today said “Tweets about the 2010 All-Star Game”. At least it’s aware of current events.
• The minimum you can update is every minute. The Updated line will change based on last update, and you can click here after 1 minute to update tweets.

This won’t replace your client (in my case Tweetie), but if you want a quick update during the game on Twitter without leaving At Bat, it’s always a plus.

Overall, if you have the At Bat app on iPhone/iPod Touch, I recommend the upgrade. If you’re on iPad or other smartphones (Android, Blackberry), check if you have the newest version. I cannot verify all features are included, though I can guess it would. If you do not have At Bat, why are you waiting? Get it!

Tonight’s game seemed a bit like last night’s game. All you needed to do was replay the DVR game, and Wednesday’s game would be shown.

The Rockies found a way to get another walk-off win, and another day to eat tacos at nearby Taco Bell restaurants. However, they had to come back from a deficit. At one point, they were down 5 runs before coming up with the game tie of 7-7 by the end of the 8th. The Rockies would use all 9 innings to get the final run, and it came in a walkoff fashion. But I’d like to point out a few specific players, and links to other blogs covering today’s game for reading.

• Brad Eldred: He was called up today and replaced Todd Helton who was put on the DL for back issues.  His first at bat was a strikeout, but his other 3 at bats were hits and eventually became runs. While he is no Helton, Eldred has contributed to the offense of the Rockies, where they needed it most.
• Matt Holliday: Yes, he is a former Rockie, but I can still hate the fact that he can belt 2 home runs out of his old ballpark. He is still pretty well. I don’t regret the deal, and he will be a great asset to the Cardinals. He went 4 for 5 on the night with 4 runs. 2 HRs
• Aaron Cook: Again, another miserable day for him. He went 5 innings, gave up 10 hits and 5 runs (including 2 homers in the 5th inning alone). Unfortunately, Cook isn’t helping me giving him a chance. In fact, I’ve just about given up on him as his performance this year is weak compared to previous years.
• Dexter Fowler: He’s the man who knows tacos. The home run in the 8th inning to tie the game at 7-7 was a great help. Dex has seen much progress since his visit to Colorado Springs.
• Evan MacLane: He was the Cardinals’ pitcher who came in at the bottom of the 9th inning. This was his major league debut. He saw the next man listed below, and then walked out to the dugout.
• Chris Iannetta: I’ve always been a fan of him since I saw his performance in 2006 when he hit the walk off home run. He’s been pretty clutch in general. Yet, this year, he was optioned to AAA-Colorado Springs for a while, to improve his performance. He did excellent with the Sky Sox and was brought back up. However, he came back at a wrong time, when the offense in general was struggling, and Netta as well. Many were calling for Netta to be traded during the season. I stuck with it, though I was getting discouraged. And yet he proved his worth last night and tonight. Tonight, he was the sole batter in the 9th, and slammed the ball out into the left field Pavilion seats, with the winning walk off run. It made a few Netta haters at least give him some consideration.

This is now the 3rd game in a row that the Rockies had to play an intense game. Sunday was the 15-inning game. Tuesday and Wednesday were both 9 innings, but they were come-from-behind games, in which the Rockies have struggled for most of the season to score runs late. The Rockies are hoping to sweep the Cardinals out, and that Ubaldo can rebound from his last outing. Good luck.

So, Sunday, the Rockies had to through 15 innings. It was the longest game ever at Coors Field at 5 hours 24 minutes. And yet, the Rockies came through with a 4-3 victory over the visiting San Francisco Giants.  Nearly all players were used up in that game, so they appreciated a rest on Monday.

Now Tuesday, besides twitter failing on me all day (don’t get me started), I was out with a friend who also had today off from work.  I kept tabs with At Bat for most of the game. It started 0-0, then 3-2 Cardinals. Eventually, it got to 9-2 Cardinals before the 8th inning. By the end of the 8th, the score was 9-3, and I was somewhere where I could watch the game on TV. The Rockies had 13 LOB, and I thought the game was over. But I never turned off the TV at this point.

I have to thank the St. Louis cardinal fans here for being nice and cordial, despite being rivals in this series, especially Jeff (@RSBS) and Michael (@FishSTL). The 9th inning is one ballgame of itself: Corpas had retired the Cardinal half without any reaching base (for the second inning in a row), and the Rockies were to come to bat. They needed 6 to remain in the game, and 7 to win. Normally, this would be near impossible, especially given the Rockies poor record of getting runs in the 9th. However, a quote by Vin Scully thanks to @Townie813 and @trueblula was rightfully said:

“Coors Field: there are no fat ladies in Denver.”

Yes, Colorado is the fittest state in the US. But indeed, the fat lady didn’t come out and sing. I think she called in sick. For indeed, the 6 runs needed to remain in the game happened. I would have settled for 6 runs. Chris Iannetta, also known as my favorite player, proved the neysayers wrong by providing a 3 run homer to give the fans reasons to go to Taco Bell the next day. But the inning wasn’t done yet. I had to get in my car on the play that brought the tying run to the plate, though I heard it. Jack was so excited when he shouted “And the game is tied!” I’ve not heard him this excited since the Ubaldo no-no. But yet, the inning was still not over. With 2 outs, 2-2 count, and 2 men on base, Seth Smith scored the game winning 3-run home run over the right field scoreboard. Unbelievable, but the Rockies scored 9 runs in the 9th inning alone, and won 12-9.

@druidloveRox I’m glad you guys won it when you did cause if it wouldve went to extra innings you wouldve just won it then instead. –@FishSTL on Twitter

This came from a Cardinal fan. He had true spirit here. I would have been happy if we had gotten 6 runs in the 9th to tie, and then gone to extra innings. But the Rockies sure don’t disappoint here. I told another Cardinal fan on Twitter that we would try to complete our games in 9 innings. This was a reference to Sunday’s game against the Giants which I discussed at the top. And sure enough, I held this end of the bargain. Congrats to the Rockies for winning. And thank you Card fans for at least being cordial. Tomorrow’s game should be just as interesting.

I thought I’d divert my attention from the usual recap of Rockies baseball games in this post. Yet it’s still sports related. I’m still keeping score of this blog…

When you go to any baseball park, the first thing you usually see upon passing through the gates is a person standing there selling programs and scorecards. Most people just walk past just to get to the overpriced concession stands and eventually to their seats. I do the same, though I used to make it a habit of spending the $1 just for the scorecard. Why? Other than your ticket stub (which now can be forged or not genuine), a scorecard is a cheap souvenir that proves you were there to watch the game. It’s also personal, in that no 2 scorecards look exactly the same.

Very few people like to score it, or think it’s too complicated. Yet, it’s actually easier than it looks. We’ve heard of the media covering terms specific to a ball game, like the 6-4-3 DP.  The box score contains other abbreviations, like WP (wild pitch). Other than the official scorer, which is required by MLB, the fan’s scorecard is just that… a fun experience. It preserves the experience of a game just like how a musician’s score uses notes. Yet, most people don’t want to try it, for they don’t know how to score.

I have never seen as many people interested in me keeping score as I did Thursday night, in the Rockies’ 13-11 loss to the Red Sox in 10 innings. To be fair, I moved from the Rockpile seats to standing on the concourse behind Pavilion seats helped a bit. But even still, the type of reactions were different than what I’m used to. I even had one female offer to sign my scoresheet, and another guy offer me money to pay for scoring his little league tournament games. No one really gave me weird looks, but overall, I’d say I had about 9 people look at it, and ask me questions, even if they took a partial interest. It does make me feel good however.

A sample Rockies side scorecard from June 24 game vs. the Red Sox

I’ve included a sample scorecard from the Rockies game above, as I shot this from my iPhone. I bought a scorebook from Sports Authority, though you can make your own, or buy a scorecard at most game venues. I make it a rule to score a game only when I have preplanned to see a  game in person from start to finish. That, so far, has limited me to Rockies games, and not watching on FSNRM, or listening to it on KOA. At Coors Field, and in certain media and ballparks, the jumbotron now features a limited scorecard of the player’s previous at bats. This I like. There are even some electronic ways, though I have not tried them due to many reasons (cost, plus battery life)

Now, the scoring is pretty basic: Anytime a person makes base, you mark the path they travel in that inning, and marking what type of hit based on how many bases were reached (i.e. 1B, 2B, 3B). A home run is scored as a HR (should have seen that coming.) Players are known for their positions. Pitcher is your #1 position (for many reasons), and the catcher is #2. Around the infield, your basemen are 3-5 (1B, 2B, 3B respectively.) SS is #6. In the outfield, you number 7-9 from left to right field. So any outs are recorded to by who handles the ball. If a ball is grounded to SS, who throws it to first base, that’s a 6-3. If the first baseman handles it himself, that’s a 3 (or 3U- u=unassisted). If the first baseman tosses it to the pitcher covering 1st base, that’s 3-1. It matters not where the play is, but who performs the play. Double plays are simple: 6-4-3 and DP written in both boxes in which players were put out.  A Fielder’s choice, where a batter is not put out, but puts someone else out will be a “FC” and the play result (6-4). A ball caught out on a fly is usually represented like this: F8. I put an arc or a straight line over it if it was popped up or hard-lined toward a position, though others may replace the F with either a P or L respectively. And my favorite: the strike out. SO is the official scorer’s mark. But most people use K for a strikeout, or a ? (the backwards K, or ʞ in HTML) if caught looking. Other alternatives are Ks (swinging strike) and Kc (called strike). I like the K / ? notation.

This covers the basics. Some people like to keep track of other info on their scorecards, which include ball/strike count (depending on the scorecard), location ball was hit on hits, RBIs, and other info. The choice is up to you.

In a day when scorekeeping is losing its touch, and when electronic options are now available, the score card is still alive in baseball.   Here’s a tip for baseball stadium operators: I’d be happy to endorse a sponsor on the scorecard. You know, fill this scorecard out, and bring it in to say a nearby restaurant to get a free meal? Or something like that. It would preserve baseball history, not to mention good business for the ballpark and sponsoring restaurant.

So, the past 7 days has been utterly disgusting by the Rockies. I am going to ignore Ubaldo’s outing on Sunday, and Hammel’s outing on Monday. In fact, I think I can safely ignore all of our starting pitchers here. The Rockies as a team in general are sucking… in all but 2 games in the past week, we have lost (or won) by 1 run. And who gets the blame? Surely not the offense, right? It has to be our pitchers. If you believe what Tracy says.  WRONG!!!

Let’s start with the starting pitching. In the past 7 days, we’ve had: Aaron Cook (2 starts), Jhoulys Chacin (2 starts), Ubaldo, Hammel and Francis. Ubaldo and Hammel won, so they don’t necessarily count. Chacin was credited with 2 losses over this time. And the others got a no decision. Pointing out Aaron Cook: his first start was dismal, and from what I heard through others like Mark Townsend, his recent start was fine like the Aaron Cook of Olde. You’re not off the hook yet, Cook. Still need to prove consistency. I’ll discuss Chacin later, why he’s not a problem. Jeff Francis is doing fine considering his start back. It’s not our starters.

And in fact, it’s not really our bullpen. Of the 5 losses, Belisle took 2, and Corpas took one blowing the save. And these things will happen, as much as we wish they don’t. Belisle let a grand slam in the 10th inning on Wednesday that pretty much sealed the fate. That hurts. But this situation could have been avoided, same with the blown save.

With Jim Tracy’s postgame summary on FSNRM, he pointed out flatly that Jhoulys Chacin gave up the runs in the 5th and 6th inning. Um, that is not all true. Chacin may have some issues running into those innings, but in the end, it takes a team effort. I can be wise enough to point out Troy Tulowitzki had a couple miscues during the game that could have created outs earlier and possibly prevented runs. However, the blame is shared among the team. Besides, Chacin was called up to replace JDLR who is on the DL, and probably needs some time. But he’s not too bad, that he kept the Rockies in the game for the whole time.

So where is the problem? It’s got to be the offense, right? Well, I believe so… Giambi can’t be a PH to save his life. He’s gone 1-12 in pinch hitting. The Rockies have left so many RISP it’s not even funny. Even in the 8th inning tonight, we had a chance to take the lead and still fell short. We’ve sent Netta and Fowler to AAA-Springs and they have done well there. So, what’s wrong now?

I’m leaning towards a change in our non-position player staff. In particular, we may need to replace Don Baylor. Something is not going right if our team isn’t producing the hits on the professional level. And Tracy, while your excuses are getting entertaining, please figure out the real reason we’re slumping, and fix it… The fans are getting sick of it. Even we can see what the real problem is.

No more excuses. We are in June, and we should have our game plan in action.

Well, what has been a nightmare of a road trip ended up with a good ending.  Friday, the Rockies had a game, against a team that had lost 10 straight, and gave it away. Manuel Corpas blew his save in a rare moment this year, despite being the de facto closer while Huston Steet is still AFK on the DL.  Saturday was much worse in that Chacin gave up 4 runs. The Rockies had a chance in the 7th, 8th and 9th to put runners on, and came 1 run short.

So, then we have Sunday. Ubaldo Jiminez came in the game with a 10-1 record, and an ERA of 0.78. That’s nearly 1/3 of the Rockies wins by this man alone. He has also been the rallying point whenever the Rockies have been in a losing streak. So, here we go again.

I have to warn you that other than Friday’s game, I had to listen to parts of the game on KOA due to work, and get status updates through At Bat and ESPN ScoreCenter. I did catch the ends of both games. So, from the first 3 innings, it was a good game. Scoreless, even matchup. Shortly after this, we got a 3-0 lead before I could listen to the game. As I get in the game, it’s the 8th inning, and Ubaldo has already thrown over 100 pitches… again. From the radio announcer, he throws a double. Then the 2 run homer happens, and we could all feel that it was bad. Not only was the score 3-2, but we feared Ubaldo’s ERA would go above 1.00, and that would do it for our celebrity. I’ll get to that in a second. He then walks Adam LaRoche, and Jim Tracy did the right thing and pulled out Ubaldo. Now Ubaldo is not a stranger to 110+ pitches. But we could all tell it was right to replace him. Rafael Betancourt comes in and finished up the inning without further damage, and Corpas gets another save retiring the side in the 9th.

Now, even with 2 earned runs scored, Ubaldo Jiminez managed to raise his ERA only to 0.93. This is still very impressive, and actually a pleasant surprise, considering his ERA is the lowest among starting pitchers this year. So, it’s no wonder that the Rockies, and the fans alike always get their hopes up whenever he comes to the mound. He has proven that he can support the team.

Not to be negative, but I think it’s time for the rest of the Rockies to put their effort as well. A pitcher’s best effort must be complemented with the best offense’s effort, and vice versa. Yes, I like Ubaldo very much. He is a workhorse, and he knows his limits are. To the rest of the team, I say this simply: Get off your asses and work. The poor record of RISP this weekend is dismal. When we have a lead, it is your obligation to protect, and keep the lead. I don’t want to call out certain players, as some are better than others. However, I will call attention to Aaron Cook: ditch the curve ball and go back to your sinker. If not, take some time off to find it. I guess I’m frustrated when you try something ‘cute’ and end up sacrificing runs out of it.

The Colorado Rockies is a baseball team. It should not just consist of a couple players who are better than others. I know that we are not going to win every game from here on out. But, this past weekend  proves that we as a team have not shown our potential effort. I hope we can do a lot better against the Astros.