Rox Recap 9/9/08 (Balk-Off)

This one stung. There's not really any reason to sugarcoat it, rationalize it, make excuses for it, or even try to remember it. This one stung. Not in the sense that the Rockies are still in the playoff race (they're not), but in the sense that in a game that we had absolutely no business winning (see Errors: 3 and Hits: 6) we had to lose the game on what can most kindly be described as a mental lapse. A balk.

1) Most of the time, balks are insignificant and a majority of the time, invisible to everyone's eye but the umpire calling it. It can just be a flinch of the pitching hand, a muscle spasm, or a nervous twitch. You cannot, even accidentally, begin your throwing motion to the plate and stop it suddenly. Left handers get the majority of balk calls on their pickoff throws to first. As a former left handed pitcher I can safely say that left handers are incorrectly charged with balks on pickoff throws to first about 75% of the time. Right handers will tell you that every left handed move to first is a balk and I say nay, kind sir, I challenge you to a duel of fisticuffs. We're just more adapted to playing the game of baseball than you righties and when you realized this, you made every position on the field easier for a right hander just so you could keep up with us southpaws. But damn.........I digress. What I'm trying to say is, Buchholz' balk to allow the winning run to score was simply a brain fart. He's been our most reliable reliever the entire season and for something like this to happen to him was just unfortunate. I don't blame him, per se, because these kinds of things do tend to happen in the annals of baseball history, but for it to happen in that situation on a team where at least the players think they still have a shot at the playoffs knowing they basically have to duplicate their improbable run of last season.......that just stings.

2) Cook seems to have run smack into a brick wall in his attempt to become the Rockies all time single season winningest pitcher. He's still 16-9 but in his last 8 starts, his record is 2-3 with an ERA of 6.58 and opponents are hitting a Tony Gwynn-ian .353 against him. Call it what you will, fatigue, mechanics, mental toughness, nerves (remember he wasn't a part of our magical run of last season as he was on the disabled list and didn't pitch until Game 4 of the World Series), but the bottom line is Cookie is just not getting the job done. His adrenaline was evident in the first inning of today's ballgame as he allowed 3 runs on 4 hits. Sinkerballers need to keep a very even keel throughout the course of a ballgame to be effective. If they try to throw their sinker too hard, it's going to flatten out and become a very hittable pitch. That's what happened to Cook in the first inning today. Once he got out of the mess he created, he did pitch a decent ballgame only giving up 1 run through the next 5 innings, but it wasn't enough on a night where the Rockies couldn't quite come up with an answer for the magnificent, the fantabulous, the "fireballer" Jorge Campillo.

3) Chris Iannetta is having one of the best seasons by a catcher in all of baseball this year. Don't just take my word for it though, look at the numbers. He hit his 15th home run of the season tonight good for 3rd in the National League behind Brian McCann (the gold standard for two-way catchers in the Major Leagues) and Geovany Soto (the probable National League Rookie of the Year.) He's second in the Major Leagues for catchers with a .397 on base percentage behind the Twins' Joe Mauer (one of the purest hitters in all the game, not just for the guys behind the plate), and his OPS (on base percentage plus slugging percentage) of .900 leads all catchers. And he's done it with about 200 less plate appearances than any of those other guys. Nobody knows it outside of the Mountain Time Zone, but Chris Iannetta is the real deal and the Rockies have finally found their catcher of the future.

I don't really know what else to say.

Don't play Willy Taveras.

Play Dexter Fowler.