I know, I know, I missed a game before posting this. To all my fans, my sincerest apologies, but to be perfectly honest, I don’t feel like talking about Tuesday night’s Rockies game. The fact that we were almost no-hit by a journeyman pitcher who missed almost all of last season due to injury hurt enough that reliving it would be like having a bad acid flashback in the middle of your corporate board meeting. I feel like a psychiatrist. Let’s just focus on the good times, the times when our offense is hitting, and we’re getting quality performances from a guy who has to muscle up to throw harder than Jamie Moyer. Don’t think about the negatives. Stay positive!
1) Alright, positive, positive…10 runs in a game are pretty good. So is a 7 run 9th inning. Especially considering the fact that we came into the game having scored the least amount of runs in the National League and only the lonely Nationals had a worse team batting average. Though this game was a nail biter until late, there were some performances that stood above the rest. This is one of many epiphanies that came to me last night in the triumphant sleep I always have after a Rockies victory: CHRIS IANNETTA NEEDS TO START. Phew, that felt good. I love Yorvit for his good nature and superb handling of our young pitching staff almost as much as I love the way he says “fastball” (pronounced “fah-boh”), but we need to give Chris a chance. He’s got a greater upside than Yorv, only a year ago he was touted as the catcher of our future, and finally he’s starting to hit like it. He struggled last year and was sent down to get consistent at bats in Colorado Springs, but when he returned in September, he hit .306 in 12 games and showed an improved confidence in all aspects of his game. He has continued that same stretch of good faith this season in his limited duty hitting .400 in only 15 at bats. Last night he went 3-4 with the go-ahead RBI double in the 6th inning that put the Rox up for good. If Hurdle doesn’t exactly give him the job outright, he should at least give him a few more at bats here and there rather than starting him once or twice a week. Yorvit hasn’t performed well enough to warrant a guaranteed starting spot, and I think once we bypass the month of April, Hurdle might start to make some changes.
2) Speaking of making changes, Clint Barmes must have summoned the power of Greyskull in the last week screaming “I have the power!” while his bat became his Battlecat. He’s been tearing it up lately. It started in the depressing 10-3 loss to the D-Backs on Saturday where he came into that game in the middle and finished 2-2 with an RBI. Then he got the start over Tulo on Sunday and smashed a dinger, finishing with 3 hits and 4 RBIs. He inexplicably didn’t get the start over Jayson Nix at second on Tuesday, but Hurdle came to his senses and penciled his name in for Wednesday’s contest. All Barmes did in response was rack up another couple of hits along with a 2 RBI single in the 7 run 9th. He also crushed a ball that would’ve been out in any other ballpark, but I forgot that to hit a ball out of PETCO National Park you have to 1. Be on steroids, and 2. Take away that silly gravity that the people of Earth seem to hold so dearly. He also made an incredible defensive snag of a screaming liner off the bat of Tad Iguchi which would have given the Padres the lead in the 3rd inning. I don’t know what else he has to do short of performing John Fogerty’s “Centerfield” acoustically for Clint Hurdle while the skipper sleeps.
3) It was also a fairly promising performance for Mark Redman who finally beat his hometown team for the first time in his career. I feel like a broken record describing Redman’s starts thus far this year. The stats won’t jump out at you, but he kept the team in the game by going 5 innings, giving up 2 runs and only 3 hits. If our bullpen throws the ball like we did last night, those stats are going to win us a lot of ballgames. Herges, Buchholz, Fuentes, and Corpas combined once again to throw 4 no-hit innings with only 1 walk. Fuentes especially has yet to give up a run in 7 appearances this year and he looks like the T-Rex of old.
Jeff needs to start pitching like we know he can tonight. He gets the unenviable task of squaring off against Jake Peavy who only has a 3-0 record to go along with his 1.64 ERA, but who’s counting? All I remember about Jake Peavy is the Rockies lighting him up in the play-in for the play-offs last season. Boo-ya.
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