To say that Tuesday night’s Rockies game was a bit strange would be like saying Andrew Dice Clay's brand of stand up comedy was only kind of misogynistic (but completely unfunny.) Catchers were playing third base, third basemen were playing second base, half our roster just went on the DL I believe (forgive me if I’m exaggerating) but it’s hard to figure out what to make of it. I’ll take a W any way I can though at this point. I’m actually going out on a limb here and saying that I was the reason we won last night. The entire year my desktop background on my computer was a picture of Tulo from re-Opening Day after he scored the go ahead run of a 2-1 victory. Tulo hasn’t exactly had the best run of success thus far, but the picture was so perfect, I was hesitant to change it. Finally, after our 4-0 drubbing on Monday, enough was enough and I changed it to a picture of everybody’s favorite deity, John Elway holding up the Vince Lombardi trophy after our Super Bowl XXXII victory. I change it, we win. Coincidence?
1) Ok, let’s get the roster confusion out of the way first. Franklin Morales was sent down to AAA to get his fastball command and mechanics in order. Long reliever and rotation candidate Kip Wells was sent back to Denver with what could be a serious hand injury. Mark Redman was moved to the bullpen to add about 15-20 mph on his fastball. Slick fielding, light hitting infielder Omar Quintanilla was called up to replace Morales’ roster spot and he will be inserted almost immediately into the starting lineup as Jeff Baker burst a blood vessel in his finger during warm-ups and couldn’t play and Troy Tulowitzki suffered a groin injury (is there any more painful?) in the first inning and had to come out. That meant Skip Hurdle had to shuffle some cards around and he went all in by moving Garrett Atkins to second base, Clint Barmes to shortstop, and his most genius move, putting backup catcher (should be starting, Clint. Read Frost Brewed Baseball more) Christ Iannetta at third. I was going to make an Abbott and Costello joke about Who’s on first but Troy Renck of the Denver Post beat me to the punch. Neither Atkins nor Iannetta had played a pitch at either of these positions but they wound up making some nifty albeit spectacular plays respectively as they showcased their virile versatility. With the myriad of players soon to be on the DL or at the very least incapacitated for a few days, we could see a roster turnover akin to the Todd and the Toddlers days. Ian Stewart could be on the fast track to the Mile High City, so could veteran starter Josh Towers or soon to be rookie pitching sensation Greg Reynolds. Stewart especially has been tearing it up in AAA carrying a .281 average with 6 hrs and 21 RBIs in 23 games.
2) So what does Iannetta do with his surprise start at a premium position? Oh nothing, just go 2-2 with a walk, a double, 2 runs, and a blast off the Napoleonic Tim Lincecum to dead center field that would have been out of any park except Yellowstone. He also scored the winning run on a Lincecum balk, a true sign that Elway himself was sick of the Rockies losing. Chris needs more at bats to prove that this is the real Chris Iannetta, not the shadow of his true self we saw last year.
3) Aaron Cook did it again, folks. We finally have what we’ve been waiting for with him for the last 5 seasons. Though he gave up 10 hits in 7 innings of work, he only allowed 2 runs (0 earned thanks to Todd’s inexplicable drop of an easy throw by Tulo in the first) and didn’t allow a run past said first inning. He also struck out 3 and lowered his ERA to a team best 2.41. If our other 4 starters pitched half as well as Cookie so far, we’d be the talk of the NL.
Baseball is a funny game. It always has a way of evening itself out. You hit 3 rocket shots right at someone and go hitless, the next day you hit a couple Texas Leaguers and a dying quail and you’re 3-3. If this game was baseball’s way of evening things out for the Rockies, we could be in for a very interesting season. Ubaldo starts today to keep his spot in the rotation, but after last night, we might not have enough arms to replace him should he struggle. Is Roger Clemens available? We could use a little of his country twang. What, too soon?
