Jekyll, meet Hyde.

You know me, the eternal optimist. Or was it the eternal pessimist? To be honest I'm a little bit of both. It's tough being me, really. On one hand I love the Rockies so much that even back in April I was checking the D-Bags score and calculating the number of games the Rockies were behind. Every day I wake up thinking that the tide is going to turn and the Rockies are going to start playing like they care (as well as have a pair.) That's a fact, but then there are times, like after today's game for instance, where all I can muster are negative thoughts about how much I hate this team and what they do to me. I know I know Mr. Cubs fan, what do I know about losing? We've only had this team for 15 years. Finish slitting your wrists and listen. It's tough rooting for this team especially with the expectations of looking to build on a magical run to the World Series last year. This season hasn't exactly turned out the way the Rockies envisioned their defense of the National League pennant would go. Today's game had a real glass-half-full/glass-half-empty vibe for me. I'm going to enlighten all of you to a trip inside my overactive mind while sitting in the upper deck at Coors watching this game.

Glass Half Full: Boy, Barry Zito sure pitched one heckuva ballgame today. I know he's struggled the last few years but maybe things are starting to turn around for the poor guy. His stuff couldn't have gone away that quickly. I mean, he did win a Cy Young in 2002. He definitely earned his paycheck today.

Glass Half Empty: Yeah, he sure earned that 7 year/$126 million dollar contract he signed in 2006 by dominating a disinterested team on a hot afternoon. He's only gone a combined 20-29 with a 4.99 ERA the last two seasons while nearly cementing his status as the worst free agent signing of ALL TIME. He basically has a 1:1 K/BB ratio (98/89) and opponents were hitting a gaudy .273 off him this season. And he holds us to.....4 hits in 8 innings. But hey at least he lowered that ERA to 5.45 and improved that sterling record to 9-16. No, no, he definitely earned this one.

GHF: It sure was great to see some of the Giants young guys come through. Especially guys who don't really have much of a future left in Major League Baseball. Guys who had toiled in the minors for 15 years finally getting their chance and running with it.

GHE: Yeah, it's real nice when guys who have been career Minor Leaguers are called up to play a meaningless game for a talentless team and completely obliterate a 16 game winner on a team still kind of in a division race. AA superstars like Travis Ishikawa, Nate Schierholtz, and Scott McClain, yes the Scott McClain managed to go a gaudy 9-14 with 6 rbis, 7 runs scored, and a home run from McClain to boot, and yes, that WAS his first Major League home run. If he's not standing next to me bagging groceries once the season's over, I'm going to be utterly SHOCKED. He's a 36 year old making his season debut, getting only his 46th career at bat in the Major Leagues after being in the system for over a decade. Oh, and he was their cleanup hitter. And did I mention that our ace, Aaron Cook was on the mound? No? Well ok then. AARON COOK WAS ON THE MOUND IN A MUST WIN GAME AGAINST A SHITTY TEAM THAT SUBMITTED A LINEUP THAT SCREAMED "WE DON'T CARE IF WE WIN THIS GAME OR NOT."

GHF: Golly gee, it's a shucky dang darn that the Diamondbacks came back to win today. Now I guess we've just got that much more of a hill to climb when the Astros come to town on Friday.

GHE: Yeah, thanks a lot Cardinals bullpen for blowing two fairly sizable leads in your three game series with the D-Bags and letting them suppress any kind of nauseating feelings of deja vu from last season as the Rockies lurked in the shadows. Now we're 6 games back again and oh yeah, we're facing the Astros in a 3 game set starting Friday. The Astros are only the hottest team in baseball, winners of 8 straight and fresh off a sweep of the Cubs at Wrigley. Awesome.

GHF: Jason Hirsh made his season debut today! And pitched a scoreless 1-2-3 inning!

GHE: Yeah, he was supposed to be pitching many scoreless innings for us this year....as our number 4 starter....in the Major Leagues...not toiling in Colorado Springs the entire season and putting up numbers only a mother could love (4-4, 5.80 ERA, 52 BB/51 K in 99.1 innings with a .293 batting average against...yikes.) He made Franklin Morales look like Franklin D. Azar (THE STRONG ARM!) You really have to wonder if he's even considered for next year's big club at all.

GHF: We at least won the series by taking 2 of 3 from the Giants.

GHE: We're past the point of being able to be content with just winning series. We need sweeps and lots of them. Today would have been a perfect time to keep up our momentum as we headed towards the final days of the season but we just fell flat on our faces.

GHF: The boys sure looked tired playing in a day game after a night game.

GHE: Yeah, it sure looked like they quit to me once the Giants went up 9-2. They were hacking at first pitches from a guy who walks 4 men per 9 innings and taking half swings at flat 87 mph fastballs. They looked about as interested in winning this ballgame as two nuns at a cockfight.

GHF: Well, Dexter Fowler got his first Major League at bat and after working the count, lined out sharply to right field!

GHE: .....Actually, I got nothing on this one. He did have a really great at bat. The first of many hopefully. I'm almost hoping the Rockies just fall out of it so he'll get the majority of at bats in centerfield the rest of the season because there's only so much of Willy Taveras popping the ball up to right field that I can take. (Every time he hits the ball in the air he should owe Lou Brown 20 push ups a la Major League.)

GHF: We're only 6 back!

GHE: Yeah, we're only 6 back. Whoop de doo. More efforts like this and you can forget about it. To paraphrase one of our pal Drew Goodman's home run calls, our postseason hopes are "goin' and they ain't comin back."

Anger Management Starring Adam Sandler

Seriously, Tulo?

In case you were unawares, Tulo has some anger issues. Often when he strikes out, for some reason he thinks it is the ground's fault, because he takes his bat and hits the shucks out of the ground. Maybe he confuses the ground with the ball. After all, Tulo isn't renowned for his intellectual prowess. Tulo's response on what he learned from bat'splosiongate 08 (yes, you can add -gate to any kind of shifty goings-on and don't talk to me about any frickin' hotel names, okay? I will not have a suffixgate on my hands): "I need to control myself better and not, you know, pound the bat into the ground." Poetry, thy name is Troy Tulowitzki. With that kind of elocution, Troy should soon surpass Rube Baker as the major league leader in eloquence.

Point of clarification: Tulo got pissed because of his poor performance and slammed his bat on the tunnel floor. Upon impact, the bat 'splosioned in his hand and sliced it up pretty well. After 16 stitches, he'll be out for a couple weeks.

As far as stupid injuries go, this is pretty high up. It could join the likes of Joel Zumaya playing too much Guitar Hero and Milton Bradley falling awkwardly and tearing his ACL after his manager pulled him away from an umpire. According to basically all Rockies media coverage, Tulo is a "gamer" and values wins over everything else. They hate to lose. Gamers hate losing more than Jim Tressel hates sweater sleeves. I guess Tulo's anger at the Rockies' patheticness is understandable and a bat 'splosion is totally random, but still. Tulo should have at least injured himself fighting a grizzly bear or something.

SAT time:
Tulo:Hand Injuries::Steve Phillips:________
a) Baseball Analysis
b) General Managing
c) Color Commentating

Answer that is unfortunately right side up, since I can't type upside down: All of the above because they are all stupid trainwrecks that should not exist.

They say the Lord works in mysterious ways and I'm not really sure what John Elway was doing here by 'splosioning the bat. Maybe he was teaching Tulo to control his anger, I don't know.

Rox Recap 4/8/08

“We won yesterday and we won today, that’s two in a row. If we win tomorrow, that’s a winning streak. It has happened before.”
-Lou Brown, Major League

The Rockies offense has finally started to wipe the cobwebs off their lumber and swing them forcefully at that little ball of cowhide being hurled at their heads. Is it too early in the season to say it’s about time? They did finally eclipse their high water mark of runs in a game for the season (4…..yeah, I know) and while I’m not quite to the point of streaking through the quad in a foam dome and some sweet Pumas in celebration, I’m pretty damn pleased with the way our boys played last night.

1) Though not as impossibly efficient as Aaron Cook was the night before, Ubaldo Jimenez found a way to get through 6 innings of solid work which has been a trouble spot for him in the past. His stuff is absolutely electric, but at only 23 years old, it’s sometimes been a struggle to harness his immense talent into throwing meaningful strikes in important spots. In his first start against the Cardinals, he only gave up 2 runs in 5 innings but needed over 100 pitches to do so. His first inning yesterday had déjà vu written all over it as he went single, walk, single to the first three hitters to put the Rox in an early 1-0 hole. After a fortunate double play and another walk, Clint Hurdle came out to talk some sense into his young gun. After Hurdle’s pep talk, Jimenez settled down and largely held the Braves powerful offense in check giving up 3 runs and notching 4 k’s. His immaturity reared his ugly head at times however as he inexcusably walked the pitcher Jair Jurrjens twice. That’s something that can’t happen and won’t as he gains experience at the big league level, but the important thing for Jimenez is he lasted 6 innings by only throwing 93 pitches, something Hurdle had only dreamed about before yesterday’s performance. He looked like the Jimenez of the playoff run last season which can only be a boon to the Rockies’ hopes in 2008.

2) Now playing at a theater near you, Big Daddy 2: Return of the King. Holliday finally busted out for the first time this season in going 3-4 and racking up a couple of big rbis. He showed great patience at the plate in the 5^th inning when his two out two strike opposite field single scored Wily T, plating what turned out to be the decisive run in the game. In the 8^th he lashed a high and outside pitch down the right field line for a double, evoking fond memories of 2007. Not only has he shown to be clutch the last few games, he’s showing more selectiveness and is making better contact. When he hits a ball square, it’s a thing of beauty.

3) As encouraging as our 10 hits and 4 runs were last night, the Rockies finally caught some lucky breaks last night for the first time in this short season. In the 4^th inning a blooper by Atkins with Helton on first took a wicked hop off the turf in right field past the Gold Glover Jeff Francoeur allowing Helton to come all the way around to score and Atkins to lumber his way to second. The next batter Brad Hawpe laced a shot to left that eluded a horribly awkward dive by leftfielder Matt Diaz. Atkins scored and Hawpe wound up with a double. Real men make their own luck and the Rockies finally made some of their own last night.

4) Another great sign for the Rockies success this year was the performance of the late inning bullpen guys: Taylor Buchholz, Brian Fuentes, and Manny Corpas. Together the trio combined for 3 innings of no hit baseball while striking out 3 and walking only 1. Buchholz ought to be our 7^th inning man all year because he has shown not only command and confidence but the overpowering stuff to get a strikeout when he needs it. Manny also struck out 2 guys looking in the ninth for his third save of the season, a nice rebound from Sunday’s blown opportunity.

Mark Redman will try to keep his spot in the rotation tonight but if you ask me (and I really hope that you do), Kip Wells performance in the makeup of the Opening Day rainout was extremely impressive and Redman will have to use his changeup and cutter effectively if he’s going to have any chance against the Braves tonight. He should just study the tape of Tom Glavine’s performance on Monday night because he blew away the Rox hitters with similar stuff. Let’s keep the streak alive.