Marco Scutaro assumes the position on Saturday night as the Rockies win 8-7 over the Arizona Diamondbacks thanks to Todd Helton's 9th inning walk off bomb. Denverpost.com
It is incredibly early in the season, but the Colorado Rockies are already showing signs of mediocrity. Through their first ten games, they hold a 4-6 record. What draws a concern for me is their inconsistent play at Coors Field. If the Rockies wish to be a contending team this year, they need to play extremely well at home. This means winning nearly every series and sweeping the really awful teams that come to town. In the six games played at home so far, they are 3-3. The bats are not much of a concern as they are fourth in both total runs scored and team batting average in the MLB. The alarming trend has been awful starting pitching. Colorado’s ERA for starting pitching is a whopping, 6.05 runs. Only the Milwaukee Brewers have a worse staff. This is something that has to change. The bullpen has actually faired pretty well through their first 10 games. Their 2.87 ERA is 8th in the NL, which is great when having to pitch at Coors Field. The issue at this point is workload. If the rotation doesn’t get their act together soon, the bullpen will be heavily overused too early in the season. You do not want them to be out of gas in September when the games carry much more weight.
Let us remember that it is the middle of April. Not that these first ten games don’t matter, but it is important to remember that the regular season ends in October. The statistics are not even close to where they will be by then. For example, right now the San Francisco Giants have the worst bullpen in the National League. The LA Angels are 23rd in starting pitching ERA. That will change. The Cincinnati Reds have a very good offense on paper, but have only scored 23 runs in 10 games. The Seattle Mariners are above .500. That will most definitely change. So no one freak out yet, we’ve got a long way to go.
The next series looks like this:
Today, the Rockies open up a three game set at home against the San Diego Padres. The Padres are hands down the worst team in baseball. Anything short of a sweep against them is unsatisfactory, especially at home. Jeremy Guthrie will get the rock tonight followed by the oldest man in the world, Jamie Moyer, on Tuesday. Watching Moyer pitch is like watching a little kid run across the street in traffic. How he gets away allowing only 4 or 5 runs is mind boggling. Juan “La Violencia” Nicasio is scheduled for the final game on Wednesday. The Padres are sending to the mound Bro #1 on Monday, Bro #2 Tuesday, and Bro #3 on Wednesday.
Leggo.
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