Back Where We Started

The rockies were unable to sweep the Phillies to extend their winning streak heading into the All-Star break. Nonetheless, the rockies go into the break with a .500 record, which is where we started the season, making this the second year in a row they've gone into the break with a .500 record or better. The rockies as a franchise have never accomplished that before. Unfortunately, that says more about rockies teams in years past than it does about this year's team. Despite the loss the rockies head into the break on a relatively high note, rebounding nicely from the road trip that sucked all the wind out of their sails just one week ago. They find themselves 5.5 games behind San Diego, easily within striking distance if they don't experience the second-half blues that have traditionally plagued this franchise. Oddly, the most memorable part of this game wasn't even the game itself, but the efforts of the grounds crew, as well as others, to get the tarp on the infield as the skies suddenly opened up. It was certainly strange to see the umpires actually kneeling on the tarp to keep it in place as the wind and rain came in a fury. Even stranger was Adam Eaton, the Phillies' starting pitcher and still in the game, working on the tarp. In all, about 12-15 Phillies players were either lying on the tarp to keep it down or getting sandbags. Jeff Huson said he'd never seen anything like it in his playing days.

In Saturday's game, Jimmy Rollins led off the game with a home run for the 12th time in his career. The most in a MLB career is 81, held by the colorful and oh-so-humble Ricky Henderson. That home run was also Rollins' 100th of his career. His first home run was against the rockies also, May 2, 2001 off of Brian Bohanon.

I was switching between watching the rox and the All-Star Futures game. I managed to be watching the futures game at the right time to see Franklin Morales strike out Ian Stewart. The future seems bright. The RMN has an article about the game this morning.

Both the RMN and DP had good articles about Matt Holliday over the weekend, talking about his relative anonimoty outside of Colorado and his quiet nature. From the DP article: "...he walked to a nearby restaurant through a couple thousand people and nobody recognized him. 'And it didn't bother me one bit,' Holliday said." He doesn't seem like the type to thrive in a NY or LA environment.

The website has undergone a redesign, making it what I believe is a little more user-friendly. Check it out.

Until next time, go rockies!

This Time Last Year

On July 6, 2006, the rockies had won five series in a row, were 44-40 and .5 games back of San Diego. July 5 was on off day and the Padres had won, so the rox had been in a three-way tie for first the day before. The last series before the All-Star break was at home against Arizona, who was in last place at the time. The rox were playing well enough to expect another series win and enter the break at least five games above .500. Instead the rox were swept by the snakes and then lost the first five games after the break. Four games over .500, feeling pretty confident, only to lose the next eight and fall to four games under .500. Hmm, sounds familiar. Hopefully this season the rox can win the series against the Phillies and be at .500 or better at the break.

How tight was the NL West last season? In a period of ten days, from July 5 - July 15, the rox went from tied for first place to fifth place. Unfortunately that is where they spent the majority of the rest of the season.

I was curious as to which teams have had the greatest changes in wins from last year to this year. Three teams tied for the most improvement of 12 more wins: Cleveland, Los Angeles Angels and Chicago Cubs; while the Chicago White Sox are by far the leaders in the other direction with 19 fewer wins than last year at this time.

This is interesting.

Until next time, go rockies!