Commercial Update: Good Music?!?!?!

Has anyone else noticed how there has been some really good music in sports commercials lately? Saul Williams' "List of Demands (Reparations)" is in a Nike commercial featuring Matt "Big Daddy" Holiday. Buck 65's "Jaws of Life" is used in an "NBA: Where Amazing Happens" commercial. Also Radiohead's (of all bands) "House of Cards" is in a NBA playoff commercial. What's the effin' deal? That's really my only insight on this--confusion--which really isn't insight at all. I guess it's better than shitty music.

Also: Ryan Clady--good. Eddie Royal--Huh? Whatever, Go Broncos!
Also, Also: Go Jordan Dizon getting picked early in the second round! Who saw that coming?

Rox Weekend Recap 4/11-4/13

As far as weekends go for the Rockies, let’s just file this one in the Weekend at Bernie’s II folder: the killer ending made up for any vomit inducing qualities one may experience in the first two thirds of the film. Friday and Saturday had that eerie déjà vu feeling of last Friday and Saturday where the D-Bags bashed, bopped, and bludgeoned Rockies pitching by outscoring us 20-5 in a three game sweep at Coors. In the first two games in the desert this past weekend, the Rockies played the same infectious tune that’s been stuck in their heads for a majority of their games thus far. It must have been some Panic at the Disco song because nobody can listen to that shit and not want to go quietly into the good night. We were once again outscored 18-5 in those games as we ran up against what is quite possibly the top starting pitching duo in all of baseball in Brandon Webb and Dan Haren. I didn’t quite cry myself to sleep, but I imbibed a few stiff drinks and thought long and hard about what the coming six months would bring for me and my beloved Rox. Then Sunday happened. Sorry if this is a long post, but there’s much to discuss.

1) Alright, I understand that the Rox faced two of the best pitchers in the game during the Baby Backs series, but we also countered with our ace in Jeff Francis and Frankie Morales who had shut out this same team a week earlier. Consistently we’ve shown so far that we’re fantastic at being incredibly inconsistent, but thank Elway the offense finally showed up so we can finally say we’ve beaten our bitter rivals at least once this year. Atkins, Holliday, and the National League leader in perseverance and peer support Clint Barmes all went yard as we rattled the Snakes (sorry) 13-5. Everybody seemed to get big hits when they weren’t getting beaned (which will definitely have some bearing on a future game between these two) and the lead was never really in doubt though Aaron Cook seemed to want to make it interesting for a hot second. Hurdle should definitely consider keeping the scorching Barmes in the lineup for at least the beginning of the Padres series at second base. Jayson Nix is playing fine, but I feel in order to keep the offense rolling, Barmes needs to get a few more at bats.

2) Tulo still hasn’t found his stride yet at the plate (he’s hitting .159 with 0 rbis as of Monday) which led Clint Hurdle to sit him down for the finale on Sunday. Thinking about it this weekend, however, I realized that last year he started out slowly too (hitting only .185 near the end of April) but eventually finished with the greatest season ever for an NL rookie shortstop after Hurdle held him out of the lineup for a couple of games. Tulo is too good of a player and too hard of a worker to be held down for too long. He’s made quality swings at pitches lately but has been fouling them straight back, putting him in the hole in too many counts and forcing him to chase poor pitches. Once he has a multi hit game in this upcoming San Diego series (and I’m positive he will. You heard it hear first), he’ll return to form and this offense is going to esplode.

3) Congrats to National League Player of the Week, number 5 in your programs number 1 in your hearts, Matt Holliday, who continues to prove that his better is better than your better. During the week, Big Daddy racked up a .480 average with 2 bombs and 10 rbis to go along with extending his streak of home runs in at bats immediately after getting hit by a pitch. Seriously, I wish I had the stat of how many times he takes the ultimate revenge on a pitcher by going deep in his next at bat. He was plunked by Brandon Medders in the 6th, a severe no no if you pitch in the National League. In his next at bat in the 8^th inning he crushed a 3-2 pitch from Doug Slaten off the wall in left and followed that in the 9^th by destroying a Tony Pena fastball 400+ feet into the left field bleachers. He did the same thing to Micah Owings in Game 4 of last year’s NLCS and everyone remembers what happened on September 19, 2006. Even if you don’t, I’ll tell you. Giants pitcher Matt Cain hit Holliday in the middle of the back in the third inning. The storm clouds were gathering. His next at bat, Cain tries to throw a breaking ball first pitch and Matt hits it 496 feet off the scoreboard at Coors. As he’s running the bases, all he does is scream “Yeah, bitch! Yeah, bitch! How do you like that, bitch?!” to Cain. One of the greatest highlights I’ve ever seen and if I could find it online, I’d give you the link, but I’ve searched high and low to no avail.

4) I don’t know what to do about Jeff Francis yet because I know he can pitch. He knows he can pitch. Clint Hurdle knows he can pitch, but something’s just not clicking for him. No, it doesn’t help that he’s had to face Brandon Webb twice and will face Jake Peavy on Thursday, but that’s the life of a number 1 starting pitcher in the best division in baseball. What’s extremely encouraging though is the performance of Aaron Cook thus far. He deserves better than his 1-1 record shows because his last two starts have been fairly phenomenal. He’s mixing up all of his pitches and his sinker dives faster than the career of Mario Lopez after Saved by the Bell (No offense, Mario, you know we tight.) He’s working quickly, working efficiently, and he’s democratic as always, staying away from all those fascist strikeouts.

5) I will soon print a retraction of my previous article on how Justin Upton doesn’t deserve any credit in the national media. Kid can flat out rake. Anybody have some crow for me to eat?

Our West Coast swing takes us to the heavy sea air of Pets Pets Pets! Park for a three game set with the Padres (that means Fathers in espanol.) What say we take the series? Would everybody be ok with that? Anyone? Bueller?

Rox Recap 4/7/08

I was determined to not write the same Rox recap I’d been writing for the last week. I wanted to be positive and spur my Rockies onto their much-anticipated second victory of this short season. Unfortunately for the first 7 and a half innings last night, I was prepared to copy and paste lines of lament from my last articles as the Rockies swallowed yet another serving of cold crusty defeat. Then Big Daddy did it again.

1) Though 3 of Matt’s 4 at bats last night were weak at best and frustrating at worst, you can’t argue with the results of his 8th inning 2 run tattooing which put the Rocks up for good. Matt, let’s be honest here, looked overanxious to hit anything Tom Glavine rainbowed (that’s a verb, right?) to the plate last night. His 4th inning at bat epitomized the entire Rockies team for the first week of the season. Todd Helton had just worked a leadoff walk off Glavine who still showed he has the stuff to straight up dominate young teams who fail to be patient at the plate and let the ball travel, therefore using the opposite field instead of trying to pull everything. Holliday strolled to the batter’s box determined to single-handedly interrupt the Rockies’ hitting hibernation. He took a mighty hack at a 76 mph changeup from Glavine that dove down near the dirt on the outside corner and tapped the ball meekly back to Glavine who calmly turned a fired the hardest ball he would throw all night to second to nab Helton. He also flew out softly to center field with two on in the 6th inning, but like I said, if Matt can do nothing the whole year except hit clutch bombs in the late innings, I’m going to run out of things to complain about. You can’t argue with the results of a win, no matter how agonizing they may be.

2) What more can you say about Aaron Cook’s performance on the mound last night? This is the pitcher we signed to a $30 million contract in the offseason. 7 innings, 1 run, 2 hits, 15 ground ball outs on only 73 pitches. That might have been the best Cook has ever looked and I was at Coors last year for his 88 pitch complete game victory over the Padres. The Braves had absolutely no answer for anything he threw up there. Sinkers, cutters, changeups, fastballs, everything was working for Big Red as he ate up more bats than a party at the Osbourne’s. Unfortunately for Cookie, the Rox bats Jason Jennings-ed him and supplied him with a grand total of 0 runs so he couldn’t be credited with the win. Cook still has yet to win a game in April in his entire career but if he keeps pitching like he did last night, it’s only a matter of time before we can muster up even a couple runs of support.

3) The game took a grand total of 2 hours and 5 minutes, the shortest game on record in Coors Field history. Glavine and Cook both looked to be in the prime of their careers: Glavine tossing rosin bags to the outside corner and Cookie cutting bats like bandsaws. Rarely do you see two pitchers so incredibly on point during a game with neither one of them factoring into the decision, but such is baseball.

4) Tulo finally looks like the Three-lo of old at short as he was the beneficiary of the majority of Cook’s ground-ball prowess. He made several running plays in the hole and also coming in on the ball and his throws to Todd were spot on. It looks like that initial bout of stone hands was just a fleeting problem. No one deserves a Gold Glove more than Tulo, especially after “MVP” Jimmy Rollins somehow robbed him last year.

And finally, look at this potent quotable from the Rox resident skipper Clint Hurdle on the play of rookie second baseman Jayson Nix:
“It is the proverbial dog on the pond. Above water he is cool, calm, collected. Below water, he is a paddling son of a gun.”
No wonder he became the media darling and favorite interview during the postseason run last year. But seriously, where does he get his material?

As always, Go Broncos.