Well, I’ve got about 4 ideas that came down on the end of the year that I’m going to try to tie in together. It’ll feel like a crazy train ride going through this post as I’ve been on a similar ride. I know, I’m back on Monday/Thursday blogging till the end of the month, and then we’ll see what happens in October. Then, in October, I’ll post sporadically as the playoffs happen, because I think this will be a fun year. Read more
Carving out the pig
As Troy Renck announced (along with others), the Rockies have abandoned the 4 man rotation effective immediately.
I wanted to post on Thursday, and if I did, it would have been about Strasburg, something that Patrick Saunders wrote about. But I didn’t have a full desire to blog on that. I wanted to give my best effort on posts I put feeling in. And this news has my total feeling in it.
Let’s put a comparison of the pitching systems we’ve had this year, not counting injuries. First of all, we start with a regular 5 man rotation. No pitch limit here, though fans know that 100p is a soft threshold. In June, the management comes up with an idea to go to a 4 man piggyback system. That meant 4 starting pitchers, getting a 75p limit, and then a “piggyback” reliever would rotate in, getting a 50p cap. The difference between a piggyback reliever and a normal reliever was the role they were in. They could be starters, but more likely they’d come in to pitch 2 or 3 innings before your back end relievers (specialty, hold and closers) would come in. That didn’t quite work out well. And now, they’ve announced that they are going back to a 5 man rotation and 3 “hybrid” (same as the piggyback) system. The starters have a 90-100p limit, and hybrids get a 45p limit. We’ve essentially gone full-circle….. sorta.
Let me get into this 4-man procedure a bit. During the months of May and June, the Rockies lost a lot of games. And by a lot, I mean a honking lot of them. Winning wasn’t even in their vocabulary, it seemed. It seemed that the pitchers couldn’t last 4 innings. So, GM Dan O’Dowd thought about trying a new system, since the Rockies had nothing to lose but more games. The piggyback system received lots of greasy fat reception from fans and media. The idea of having 4 starting pitchers is nothing new. In fact, before the modern 5 man rotation, pitchers used to have to pitch on 3 days rest when there was a 4 man rotation in the 70s and earlier. The pitch cap was also tried in the past, and pitchers generally hated it. Yet, combining this with a 2nd-string rotation of sorts made sense in the GM’s mind.
Maybe it made sense to him, but he only looked at it one way: How the team could conserve the pitcher’s work stress on the game. If one cuts down the breaks between days, and also the work load in the game, it would even out, right? That’s where I downright disagreed with it. For one thing, we have a lot of young pitchers on the team. That’ll happen when you have injures. But it was prone to cause problems, and indeed, some of the pitchers were pulled off with injuries. Friedrich was pulled out for the rest of the year with some injury. Drew Pomeranz was another concern, because at the beginning of the year, the team stressed that they’d limit his innings since he’s not had a full year in the majors. I heard it was something like 160 innings, or so. It wasn’t such a hard cap as Strasburg and the Nats (which I believe was a ridiculous issue in itself.) But the new rotation was proving to be a bit hard on him, causing a sore arm, which resulted in skipping every other start, and calling up a pitcher from AAA to spot-start, it seemed. Having Chacin back from an early injury may have also influence the change.
There was also another problem with this 4 man rotation. With a 75 pitch limit, most of our pitchers were unable to make it to the 5th inning, a criteria for starting pitchers in determining win stats. Granted, a win for a pitcher means garbage, but some are influenced because wins = money. It’s already hard that pitchers don’t want to come to Denver due to fear of the altitude affecting their pitches. A 4 man rotation would be harder to even persuade even trades or other free agent pitchers, and might cause a mass exodus by current starting pitching. Jim Tracy’s contract is up at the end of this year, and even if he doesn’t come back (which I still believe may be the case), they couldn’t recruit a new manager with this system in place.
Now, I’ll give credit that the GM was thinking outside the box on this one. After all, the team was just losing day in and day out, to the point where I was getting unmotivated with it. (Okay, my unmotivation came from other asinine GM decisions as well.) But really, the reasonings behind this unconventional idea was also wrong, as he tried to tie it to pitching at altitude. I could see this working at any place OTHER than Coors Field. Then there was the inconsistency behind this theory. Tracy started it, then relaxed on the limits. Then Geivett reinforced the idea, and then it was relaxed. Talk was about extending it till next year. Then they abandoned it altogether (saving the piggyback feature).
My personal take was that the announcement in itself was a terrible idea. However, if I was in this situation, I think I could accept a 4-man rotation on an ‘emergency’ basis. To put it honestly, if they said that instead of calling it an experiment, or “Project 5187″, that they said it was an emergency situation where it was a temporary fix (until they could get back to a 5 man), I’d probably be okay with it. They could probably call up a pitcher every other start to fill in for Pomeranz (much as that still hurts the affiliate). I really don’t know what else could have been possible, given the situation. We had Jeremy Guthrie who was really a wash, since he couldn’t adapt his mind to Coors Field situations. It was really one of those years.
This year was a wash out, but I just don’t get the actions of what O’Dowd did this year that ruined his credibility to the team and to the fans. Sure, we can’t actually kick him out without doing something illegal, but we can certainly vote with our pocketbooks. And that goes for any team with a stupid GM’s actions
September blues
Well, welcome to September. The temperatures begin to fall. Baseball rosters expand to 40 players. And for teams not lucky enough to contend in the Fall Classic, it’s the beginning of the end. And some may start to feel blue about it.
I have not been to a Rockies game since June 12. Yes, this was right in the middle of the Rockies catastrophe. The pitcher was Jeremy Guthrie, one who was a major contributing factor in the downfall. But it was just one of the factors leading up to the switch in pitching mentality by the Rockies front office. Yeah, I missed the Jeff Francis signing, and the “piggyback pitchers” by that time. I was just sick of going to games only to see the Rockies lose. The change done at the higher level were ones that I disagreed with, and made me determined not to see another Rox game in person until they change upper management.
Sadly, I want to go see another game, despite my boycott. But I know that the boycott is useless, as the changes set this year are going to be implemented next year as well. I’d really like to see one of the last games of the season just to “close out baseball”. And yet I’m really stuck between a rock and a hard place. I’m sure I’m not alone here, as I talked to Sackor about this earlier this week.
I guess I’ll leave it to my readers here: Would you just give in, knowing that whatever changes your team might have done is going to be around for a longer time, or do you still hold grudges? Or would you go, with a different feeling in mind?
Now, I know I have not had the greatest work schedule, which also contributed to my lack of showing up. Yet it wasn’t the main factor. Maybe I’ll just bite the bullet and choose one of the last 3 home games to see. If you are interested, maybe we can make a mini-tweetup for it. Let me know on my twitter feed (@druidlove).
As an epilogue, the sport normally to succeed baseball (not football, but hockey), seems very likely not to happen, at least in the NHL. So, this would be some therapy to get ready for a hell freezing over winter. 
Thanks to @Supahfly318 for contribution, and also to @AyanaPipio, who probably has the same thoughts I have about this.
Year of the crazy manager
Okay, I think I’ve echoed my concern enough of the things I don’t like in Dan O’Dowd. Yeah, the news is out that the Rockies will continue this “piggyback” paired pitching system into next year (despite the fact that Tracy Ringolsby already announced this last week) is disgusting, but I’ve already ranted too much on this. After all I am just a fan, and I don’t know anything–except to other fans. And that’s fine with me. But O’Dowd is not the only GM who has done crazy stuff. In fact, I think it’s a syndrome across the whole league. This is the year of the crazy manager.
Let me illustrate this by bringing up some teams that have made poor decisions:
* The Washington Nationals: for their decision to shut down Stephen Strasburg no matter what. I can understand them playing with eggshells with Strasburg after coming back from TJ surgery. But as I talked with Mike Casey (@mikecasey24) about it, we both agree that shutting him down is ridiculous. There could have been some better ideas tossed around, like skipping a start, or optioning him, or something, or even just let him pitch the year. The Nats are going to make the playoffs, unless something ridiculous happens, and not having your star pitcher in postseason will suck.
* Los Angeles Dodgers: Money does not always buy championships. I’m sure a lot of this was newly founded owner Magic Johnson wanting to ensure Dodger fans that Dodgers will contend to win every year. A nine player trade with the Boston Red Sox, and over $200 million later, they find their first 2 games are at Coors Field. Ironically, in one of the worst years for the Rox, the bats show up for purple in time to silence the men in blue. Money does talk, but all I know is that it says “goodbye” to me.
* Houston Astros: Firing their manager. This is like burning bridges when your manager is already walking over a huge chasm filled with alligators at the bottom. It just doesn’t make sense. You’ve already built a bad team, and just trying to make it look like the manager is at fault. I don’t get it.
* Boston Red Sox: Bobby Valentine. He could basically write a blog with his vocal opinions that could rival this post. Nuff said.
* Miami Marlins: I really shouldn’t include Ozzie Guillen on this list, but his remark about Castro, and then getting a 6 game suspension by the team probably sums it up. Interestingly enough, in another half-ass move, they bought lots of superstars, only to give them away midseason. What’s the logic on this? That’s already 2 strikes there, what’s the 3rd one?
* Colorado Rockies: If you don’t know, you haven’t read my blog this year. 
I think with all the managers putting their feet in their mouths this year, maybe we should give them some Ivory soap so they can wash their mouths out and be nice and squeaky clean for next year?
Thanks in part to Mike Casey (@mikecasey24) for contributions to today’s blog
From the Clubhouse
It does make you wonder what happened to the Rockies this year. They started good, then crashed and burned. Then they’re charging out of the abyss with feeling. It does make you wonder why the Rox need to crash in the first place. Did they really need Geivett to give moral support? Did the pitching staff really needed the shakeup? Do we really need to have a AAA team out on the field instead of overpaid lazy professionals?
Don’t get me wrong. I’m always happy when my team gets a win, shuts out a rival, goes on a hot streak, or even sweeps a team. It hasn’t happened that much this year that it feels like Christmas day when it happens. But maybe it’s getting a RC car instead of the keys to a Lexus sitting in your garage kind of feeling is what I have right now. Maybe I can ask Father O’Dowd (no, not as a reverend, but wearing a red suit like Santa Claus) if I can exchange present would be better. Then again, I don’t know if I want to take the chance and get zonked instead. I’ll settle for what I have now, and just hope that next year, I can see something better. In the meantime, I’ll play Powerball, and write Santa to give me a Lexus next year. And a NL pennant and a World Series trophy.
A team full of oinks and quacks
Once upon a time, at least before Spring Training started, the Rockies had this ideal lineup. These were their starting pitchers of choice:
Jhoulys Chacin
Jorge De la Rosa *
Juan Nicasio
Jeremy Guthrie
Drew Pomeranz**
Unfortunately, JDLR would not be ready until (rumored) end of May at the earliest, so another pitcher would fit in that role as a stopgap measure. It turned out with the arsenal of pitchers Dan got, we had to use Jamie Moyer in that role. Also, the Rox were concerned about Drew that they didn’t want to overwork him. So he got a start in the Springs until we needed a 5th pitcher, and even then, there was talks about limiting Pomeranz’ workload to a soft cap (as opposed to the hard innings cap the Nationals are placing on Stephen Strasburg.) So life is grand, we go .500 through April.
Then all hell broke loose. Chacin underperforms, and eventually is on the DL (after nearly getting optioned). JDLR has setbacks in his rehab starts, and spends the entire season on the DL. Nicasio gets hit again, and is gone for the year. Guthrie spends time on the DL early on, and cannot throw a ball for strike to save his life. Moyer is cut for similar reasons. Eventually the rest of the position players see time on the DL. What a mess.
Then in the middle of June, Dan O’Dowd, through his puppet Jim Tracy, announces that the Rockies are switching their pitching. The change would involve a 4 man starting pitching rotation with a hard 75 pitch limit. After this, there’s a “piggyback” pitcher (who might be a starter, or a reliever), with a 50 pitch limit, before going to relievers. When this broke out, most of MLB fans and analysts laughed. Rockies fans groaned and despised this radical thinking.
Dan O’Dowd had in his reason, declared that he had always thought of this idea, but could not put it in effect because the 2007 and 2009 years were successful for the team. It took an entire pitching meltdown for O’Dowd to put this in play. His logic was also flawed in that altitude takes a toll on arms, and this would help save the pitching arms. I can understand trying to think outside the box, but this is truly Orwellian of O’Dowd to mention this.
At first, there was no real difference. In fact, the starters were being pulled by the 3rd or 4th inning, while the relievers were actually getting worse. The Rox were losing almost every game, and were looking to hit 110 or more losses. In fact, there were even more pitchers hitting the DL, as well as the rest of the starting position players, like Tulo and Helton and Cuddyer. Then, when everyone gave up, the team started to win. They regained Jhoulys Chacin this week, and helped to sweep the Mets. Suddenly, some people think this rotation may stick, including Tracy Ringolsby.
I don’t mind the out of the box thinking. But the only one who is living high on the hog is O’Dowd himself (and I think he’s a bit quacked here.) I think a lot of this uptick has been to the offense, and especially with the bench guys getting more play time due to the regulars on the DL. But, I sure hope O’Dowd is satisfied with his current pitching staff. Because he’s not going to get any who will want to come here. Sure, it was already hard to get pitchers to come to Denver. But no pitcher will want to come now with the basis that they will have 3 days to rest instead of 4. The other factor is that with this rotation, they are basically ruining Drew Pomeranz. He wasn’t supposed to be getting this workload because he has not had a full season in the majors before. And signs that he has to have his rotation skipped are not great signs. In fact, this is actually counter to O’Dowd’s theory. His theory of the 4-man rotation may work for any other team except the Rox. (The 4 man rotation was a norm through the 70s).
As for me, I’ll still root for the Rockies. I’m always happy when they win. But deep down inside, I guess I don’t like being lied to, and I felt that Dan O’Dowd has broken a lot of my respect with his doublespeak. There’s only a couple weeks left before the September callups, and even with the season being lost for this team, we’re playing for next year. Let’s not try to ruin any more players, and go back to a traditional 5 man rotation, so we can indeed show the rest of the MLB that baseball can be played while being high–a mile high that is.
Thanks to @RockiesReview and @bertjanb for contribution to today’s blog
Around the horn
Players like Melky Cabrera are what gives a black mark to MLB. Everyone agrees in playing a fair game. And doing drugs is unacceptable. But lying about it is even worse. I hope he spends time behind bars… and I mean years. Don’t make the excuse that he’s a professional athlete–because he’s not. He’s not acting professional about it at all. Sorry, rant over.
Something doesn’t fit
Well, as with last week, the Rockies were pretty much giving wins to their opponents. Helton is gone for the rest of the year, and Friedrich was out for the rest of the year as well. This new idea that seems to be coming from a bunch of crackheads is showing itself as the worst idea of an already fragile pitching staff.
Then, Chavez Ravine called the Rockies, threatening with its teeth to crunch and bury the Rox alive. Traditionally, this place has not been the most friendly to the Rox. With a season the men in purple are having, it could be another snooze-fest for the fans already disenfranchised. But yet, they ended up winning 2-0 on Monday. It was incredible. Tuesday, they came back with a 3-1 win, and won the series. This was seen as a miracle. In most years, this was a great thing, and fans would hope to bring out their brooms for a series sweep. This year, the expectation has fallen faster than the mercury falls in Vail during the winter, to where winning back to back games is seen as a miracle. There was some hope for a series sweep.
Their last sign of life is probably best illustrated by a pic I tweeted while I was at Lakeside yesterday. Picture hosted on instagram. I was like going crazy, while I was waiting to get in the Skoota Boats (to get cooled down). I saw the instant replay on At Bat, and was thinking… “Go speed racer, go.” This was incredible. I guess I cooled off just like the Rox, and the Rockies would end up losing 6-4.
So, were these 19 innings an aberration? Maybe. In a normal season, we’d be happy for 2 wins, and this, and we could move on with the next game. This year, just trying to avoid 100 losses is going to be looked up as a miracle. I’m looking forward to hockey, and next year already. But that won’t stop me from listening to baseball games, and tracking the Rockies progress.
Death of the Rox… and blog changes
Wow, I didn’t know that the Grim Reaper has taken a position as president. Yeah, this is a special edition of this blog. I can’t help it that this week has been the worst week I can ever recall in sports history in this city. I have a song I’d like to dedicate to the Rockies, with apologies to Simon & Garfunkel:
2001 Monfort Street
Breaking news: Dick Monfort has just announced that he is installing a Walmart Ballpark at 2001 Blake Street in Denver, Colorado.
The plan is to operate a ballpark in a cheap economical way, similar to the current Rockies. Ticket prices will not change from the current model. Plans are in the talks of lowering the price of beer by bringing in 3.2% beer. Monfort has not commented whether the famous “Site-to-store” mantra of Walmart will be coming. He did have this to say:
“We have the right people running this organization. I know there’s some that disagree with me. People talk about accountability. I am taking accountability for this.”
Now, really?
I slept in Wednesday morning, but caught the news. Then I heard both the Bill Geivett interview on KOA and then the Monfort press conference. It nauseated me. It sounded eerily similar. It had all the markings of when I worked at Walmart, and their managerial change.
Long ago, I held a job there. I watched how this company changed in a duration of 3 years, which was, ironically how long I was employed. They continue to cut corners on their rules until the corners were looking like broken stop signs. Their original scheme was that a department manager was in charge of each department, and then an assistant manager was overseeing several departments, with a manager and co-manager overseeing the store. Each assistant manager could usually have one or more support managers to assist in their area. Sounds pretty similar to most baseball franchises, right?
Well, at the midway of my Wallyworld employment, the company got this crazy notation that the assistant managers were overburdened, and to offer promotional opportunities, they had this new level between the department manager and the assistant. These “zone managers” were basically an extension of the assistant managers, as I could hardly see any difference between the two. In fact, I’d purposely avoid this middle manager often because this was useless. Indeed, I’d get the same response (or worse) from the middle level than I did from the assistant. In some cases, I tried to report problems, or even violations of their rules, and was ignored. In essence, I felt like it was just more bureaucracy for a waste of time and money for the company.
Unfortunately, the Rockies organization has followed suit with the latter paragraph above, insert the name of Bill Geivett as that middle manager. Sadly, I don’t know what this will accomplish. As it stands, the Rockies general manager, Dan O’Dowd, has issued some ludicrous claims and issued the worst policies in baseball for our particular team. The 4 man rotation/75 pitch limit is laughed at by everyone in baseball. Many see it counter to their claims of hard to pitch at Coors Field. But the front office is failing to acknowledge the root of the problem: bad pitchers in the system, and a poor defense. It’s no wonder why this team is on pace to break 100 losses in a season, worse than the worst season-low record in the history.
I quit Walmart the first week of 2011. And while I can’t stand them, I do stop in occasionally to get some items. (I guess living directly behind one doesn’t help either.) And like the Rockies, I want to root for the players, but I can’t stand how the organization is run now. I kind of want to break away for the first time since this team was formed, and yet, I’ve too much invested into this team.
Damn you Dick “Sam Walton” Monfort.
Two articles of interesting read: Purple Row stole my thunder. But mine is more personal, and I can relate better.
Also, here’s Dave Krieger’s blog about the truth with O’Dowd. Sadly, this didn’t affect my opinion. In fact, it mirrors both Purple Row’s column, and my personal view.
Sliding home
Here are 2 quotes I thought were funny from twitter. First from Trevor Irvine (@Trevor_Irvine)
OK, the
#Rockies have gone from poor, to bad, to boring, and now irrelevant. Has there been a greater fall within one season in sports?— Trevor Irvine ? (@Trevor_Irvine) August 1, 2012
And the other from David Martin:
So is Dan O’Dowd the starter, or the piggy-back guy? Do the
#Rockies have a 4-man rotation in their front office now too?— David Martin (@RockiesReview) August 1, 2012
4F stamped
Edited 08-01-2012 11:16am. One of the rare times I will edit my blog with substantial news. Points that are now irrelevant were struck through.
Sorry I’m a lot late to my normal blogging. So, let me cut to the chase here. I lost my internet on Sunday due to weather, so I couldn’t blog on my personal blog. That put me behind. But I wanted to blog on Monday about Fan photo day, and how I normally want to participate, but now didn’t have a taste for it. And, therein lies the problem. It was that I was so upset with the “O’Dowd touch” (which is the total opposite of the “Midas Touch”), that I couldn’t bring myself to write about it. Now, if you’re curious, my original plan was to joke about the “O’Dowd touch” along the same lines that Greeley residents joke about the smell of their town.
Yet, the trade deadline was coming up, and this tweet conversation described my opinion about O’Dowd:
@druidlove i feel nauseous knowing DOD is still presiding over these types of decisions…— Brian Smith (@gorox1983) July 31, 2012
Yeah, the more I thought about the trade, the worse it felt with O’Dowd in control. And yet, Sackor was right here:
@druidlove I would have criticized him regardless, lol— Sackor Dennis(@Supahfly328) July 28, 2012
At 2:00pm Mountain Time, the bubbling of the rumor mill fizzled out without any firework trade. Betancourt, Belisle, Hernandez, any other player rumored to move did not happen. Either way, the Show must go on. And that meant the Redbirds were playing at 2001 Blake Street tonight. I guess the Rox forgot to check in, because I fell asleep listening to the 11-5 score. My motivation was just gone for the team.
@druidlove No not just you. I skipped a couple of games because I was bored with this team.— Trevor Irvine ? (@Trevor_Irvine) August 1, 2012
Oh yeah, Sorry Trevor. Yeah that’s what everyone I was talking to said, even before the trade deadline.
But then I heard just before 11pm that O’Dowd was “reassigned”, and that Bill Geivett was now the new GM of the Rockies. Once that came up, it was like hearing the “Hallelujah” chorus. While I’m still waiting to officially link it, it’s buzzing around on Twitter like a wasp’s nest. Once I have the source, I’ll link it here. Either way, if he is gone, it’s a step forward. Nice try of a rumor. But it seems a step closer with this Denver Post article explaining what exactly the Rockies changed.
Now, if O’Dowd is gone, you can’t just say that Tracy is gone as well. I can’t confirm it, but I think Tracy may just stick around to finish the season out. Why? Well, for one, you can’t say that Jim Tracy is completely at fault for the team’s losing spiral. Really. While he does have his share of blame, you can’t blame a man if he isn’t given the proper tools to play with. And most of our players really deserve to be in AAA-Colorado Springs. Some people forget that the manager is only responsible for playing the product he is given on the field. He doesn’t have the ultimate authority to pick the product. That is the General Manager’s job. This probably means that if we have a new GM, they won’t do much for the rest of the season. They can’t really, because the non-waiver trade deadline is done. The season is pretty much done. But then there’s the offseason.
Anyways, I guess the more I thought of having O’Dowd continue in the game, the worse I felt as a fan. I don’t like to be a bandwagon fan, but there was absolutely nothing to cheer about. I confess that I have had thoughts of betraying the team because of the state we were in. And that’s really sad. But I hope the chapter on Dan O’Dowd is finally closed. I guess, in reality, waiting for this to happen was better than my original post I was going to write.
And here’s my quote of the day, thank you to Mark Townsend, in light of the trade rumors and what I just mentioned about trying to trade O’Dowd. (I tried to trade him for some peanuts and Cracker Jack®)
@druidlove I don’t even think Cracker Jack would want that publicity.— Mark Townsend (@Townie813) July 30, 2012
Giving up on the game?
Well, I’ve seen it more often lately. And this is the latest from Brian:
im done wasting time on watching games for awhile #rockies
— Brian Smith (@gorox1983) July 25, 2012
Yeah, I’ve heard the same thing from Eric (@codechopper). Wes and I don’t really want to go to games at Coors Field now. And even one can see the frustrations in Mark’s posts that this season is getting frustrated. Why? It doesn’t need to be, even if we are now at a point where 2012 is a lost cause. Yet, even in the early 2000′s, where we had the Generation “R” and watching rookies make the big leagues, this year has been worse than that ever was. Here are the factors:
1. Stop the mad scientist experiment
Yeah, that’s the stupid 4 man rotation/75 pitch limit. Troy Renck already proved that this experiment is not working in that our relievers are being sacrificed. What Renck failed to prove is that only one of our starters, Jeff Francis, is seasoned, and can handle the work. When we have stints where Pomeranz is reporting soreness after each game, and one of them lasted longer, that’s when this experiment is done. We have Edwar Cabrera who, in my opinion, still isn’t ready for the Show. And we’re just ruining all of our pitchers with this. Now that the season is officially in the wastebin, or the furnace, just go back to a normal load, and we can struggle with it.
2. We need to see your identification
*waves hand* What do you think you are, a Jedi? (maybe I am, but that’s another story.) Some of our players seem to have 2 different outings on the field. Sometimes, Marco Scutaro has his good days, and then he has those little league moments where he forgets that it’s strike 3. Or that he is safe. And sometimes it’s in the same game. Makes you wonder where his brain is.
Though, it’s not just Scutaro’s fault. In fact, almost all of our players have their blonde moments too many times to count, and it’s really frustrating. If this is a little league game, I’ll go to my nearby park and watch it. At least that’s fun. Not when million dollar players play like the field is covered in banana peels.
3. Medic please?
Sure, no one can predict injuries. (If someone can, further than 24 hours in advance, can I hire you?) So, the injury bug has hurt many of our players. And certain players like JDLR who were supposed to come back, just never happened. It happens. And unfortunately, O’Dowd never had a backup plan. I guess this and the pitching backfire really damned this season.
But, there were some injuries I have to wonder. Jason Giambi and Todd Helton placed on the DL may have been suspect. In the latter, it allowed Josh Rutledge to come up. And the former was to avoid placing Pomeranz on the DL and have Edwar Cabrera to come up. Maybe it’s legitimate… but I can still suspect.
4. Leadership that is high
Sorry, I’m not talking about “Mile High” as in the elevation of Denver. Now, I’m not sure if I’m talking about drugs or just being on their “high horse”. But it could be either–or both at the same time. In fact, Dan O’Dowd has …. for lack of a better term, disappointed the fans this year. I’m sorry, I’ve lost faith in him leading. Jim Tracy, now we have to give him some slack, since he doesn’t have a choice in what players he’s forced to deal with. (He may have some influence, but ultimately, that’s O’Dowd’s choice.) But we’ve seen him mismanage teams as well. Some of the losses we’ve had over the years were actually his problem of abusing the double-switch, and intentionally walking players.
In essence, we the fans know when our team is bad. Even when we have a bad team, we’d be willing to watch it. But when a team plays as sloppy as the Rockies do, it boggles the mind, as to why we continue to watch it. There are better things that can entertain us, like the local slowpitch softball game in the nearby park. Or the Broncos just opened training camp today… there goes our fan base.
Rockies, you should be ashamed of what you have done for yourself on the field.
I can say that off the field, they are a great sport, as they visited the Aurora hospitals today in solitude towards those affected by the theater shooting. That is one thing I’m happy as far as being a CO resident/’native’