Rox Recap 6/23/08 (Great. We're in....Kansas)

The Rockies and Interleague play usually go together like rama lama lama ke ding a de dinga a dong. Going into a series with the 34-43 Kansas City Royals, it was looking up for the recently rollin' Rockies. What was the tagline of those old Hertz commercials? Not exactly? Instead of keeping with the theme of success against the American League, the Rockies met their match in a frustratingly unfortunate manner. After being unable to stomach watching most of the game after the 4 run first inning, Eric and I flipped back and forth between the new American Gladiators. Then after giving up 2 more quick runs after finally starting to claw their way back in the top of the 5th, we decided instead to go mini golfing at the Hylands Adventure Land (also known as Anthony's Idea of Heaven) here in Broomfield. Seeing the final score when we returned wasn't just unfortunate, it was expected.

1) Jeff Francis added to his first inning awesomeness that has befallen his 2008 season by giving up another 4 runs, 3 with 2 outs. In 16 first innings this year, Francis has now given up 19 runs. When a team struggles to score runs, especially in the clutch, it's not very advantageous to be in a hole right out of the gate. After a decent run of quality starts, Francis has now nearly completed his total fall from grace (Jessie Spano style) and is now 3-7 on the season. Not exactly what you'd expect from a guy who's won 45 games the past 3 seasons.

2) It's pretty incredible to see what a snakebitten team looks like. No matter what the hell they do or how likely it seems they will score in a given inning, the Rockies will impossibly fine some way to bungle the job. Not 1 of any of Brian Bannister's career-high 6 walks came around to score, exemplified perfectly by the top of the 2nd inning. Two walks to Jerry and Hawper, a passed ball gets them to 2nd and 3rd with nobody out. If Tulo were to do practically anything but ground back to the pitcher, we get a run in and some of the momentum back from the Royals' four run first. Instead Tulo strikes out swinging. A walk to Iannetta loads the bases for newly healthy Clint Barmes who subsequently grounds into the 1-2-3 double play, ending the inning without a single Rockie crossing the plate. Then in the 5th with first and third and no out, Willy T comes to the plate. We couldn't not score again right? Wrong. Bill scorched the ball to third, Alex Gordon made a nice pickup and Iannetta was left in no-man's land. He was tagged out and Willy inexplicably didn't make much of an attempt to run to first on a ball he could've easily beat out. With Shake and Bake's RBI single immediately after and Matty's first home run after his stint on the DL, we still mustered a 3 run inning which could've easily been 4 or 5, swinging the pendulum of momentum the way of the Rockies.

Coming into the game the Royals and Rockies had identical 9-3 records in Interleague play, but the Rockies are going to have to figure out how to score runs when they are presented with opportunities if they're ever going to play competitive games into August and September.

Go Sky Sox.