After I returned home from the game last night, I was all worked up to write an angry post about the cheap owners, the terrible starters, and the possibility of a 100-loss season. I even wrote the first paragraph, which I won't repeat here. But then I thought better of it. I thought that (if you'll excuse me) if my bad attitude was starting to wear thin even on me, it might be old news to readers as well. So I figured I'd sleep on it and see where things stood in the morning. (Sadly, with the major league schedule now completed for the evening, the record incontrovertibly shows the Rockies tied for the worst record in major league baseball. But we're trying to be uplifting here!)

So instead of writing a vitriolic "Cardinals 6, Rockies 5" blog entry, I went to finish all of the chores I had put aside to go to the baseball game. I cleaned the cat bin. I emptied the dishwasher. I did the laundry (including the Curt Flood jersey I wore to the game in protest). Then I decided to have a glass of lemonade, listen to Wilco's exemplary Sky Blue Sky, and finish this weighty history of the Ottoman Empire I've been trudging through for the past few weeks.

While I was stirring the frozen lemonade concentrate into a pitcher of water, I noticed that the back of the new shelf I bought to house my ever-expanding record collection, which perches on the kitchen counter due to single-bedroom space requirements, looked kind of bare and unpleasant. I thought it might be nice to brighten it up with some magazine clippings, and the first thing my eye caught over across in the stack on the far side of the counter was the monthly Rockies magazine.

The magazine also doubles as the program they sell at games, so there's always full-page pictures of everybody notable on the roster. Jeff Francis and Troy Tulowitzki have been on my fridge for a while. (I must digress to note that the issue in question, May 2008, has Manny Corpas, the "Eye of the Storm," on the cover, and also introduces a "Tulo and Nix" feature that I suppose will not be appearing again for some time.) Who's the next guy that leaps to mind that I need represented on the back of one of my shelves? Why, Todd Helton of course.

And then I began to think about Todd, as I looked for scissors and tape. How much have I written about Todd Helton this season? Not a whole lot. I gave credit to Garrett Atkins and Matt Holliday for doing their thing in the midst of all the anarchy, but I took Helton for granted. That's unforgivable. Todd Helton is the whole reason I live in Colorado in the first place. That's overstating things slightly, but I never would have moved to a region without a baseball team I could feel comfortable rooting for. And although the Rockies were pretty crummy from 1996-2004, I had always admired Helton as a great hitting, fielding, and throwing first baseman. He was a complete player at a position that began to see a preponderance of Mo Vaughn types during this era. So I figured even if Colorado was bad for many years, I would always have Helton's play to admire. That was good enough for me. I bought a Rockies cap, a purple #17 jersey, and I packed my bags.

(I also have, as a relic of a similar process, a #54 Houston Astros Brad Lidge jersey. It didn't work out so well in Houston, for myself or Lidge. Maybe I'll tell the story of my #10 Shingo Takatsu White Sox jersey another time.)

Coming back to my kitchen, and my lemonade, and my action photo clipped of that perfectly level swing at its very completion, I've decided to give the Rockies a break this year. They're horrible, and venal mistakes were made on the part of the management team that caused this to be so. But they gave me and a lot of other people a ton of joy last year. Yeah, by the end of the year Coors Field is going to be as empty as it was at the end of the game last night, after Mark Redman got lit up for five runs and three innings and a nice blast of cold rain fell through the middle innings. But it was never about full stadiums or winning teams for me, and I don't see why a little taste of success one year should change that.

It's a shame and a missed opportunity for the Rockies that they weren't able to follow up on their 2007 breakthrough with another contending season. That makes me sad because I want my team to win and the sharp dropoff in season ticket sales for '09 (after this year's surge and, accordingly, price hike) will hurt their chances to do so; but the fact remains that I like it in Colorado, I like Coors Field, and I plan to be here for a while. I'm stuck with the Rockies and the Rockies are stuck with me.

All right, I still have some bullets from the game to get through:

• Hand it to the torturous Rockies offense to finally hit a groove in the ninth inning and ruin the one thing that was going to save my miserable night, the extremely rare experience of seeing a complete game thrown at Coors Field. Braden Looper wasn't dominant in the least, giving up ten hits and striking out only one, but he didn't walk anybody. His ball-strike ratio: 38-76. You hear that, Ubaldo? You hear that, Franklin? You hear that, Francis Channel?
• Speaking of #26, the reason I quite pointedly did not include Jeff Francis with Aaron Cook when I excepted Cook from the Rockies' "Festival of Crap" rotation I wrote about earlier is because Francis is not doing what he needs to do to go deeper into games. Even though he's put up some nice starts his last few times out, the Channel is still throwing too many pitches and walking too many. He's getting to the 100-pitch mark in the fifth or sixth and if he's going to be an ace (and the Rockies need him to be, with Cook's defense-dependency) he needs to throw first-pitch strikes and force opposing hitters to get aggressive early in the count. That's not really a note from last night's game but Francis does pitch tomorrow.
• Cardinals rookie outfielder Brian Barton looks a lot like Eddie Steeples, aka Darnell from "My Name Is Earl." His nickname should be "Crab Man," if it isn't already.
• Willy Taveras got an RBI groundout in the third, his fourth. The Rockies rank 29th in RBI from the leadoff spot this season. Anemic Minnesota is last. And Colorado plays half their games at Coors Field!
• Chris Iannetta's introduction music is "I Can't Dance," by one of my favorite bands (really, I'm not being sarcastic), Genesis. The music nerd slash baseball fan in me hopes that Iannetta is a fellow true believer and I'll run into him at a record store one day while I'm searching for a replacement for my slightly scratched copy of Trespass and we'll become fast friends due to our shared love of Tony Banks' synthesizer mastery and Phil Collins' inventive drumming. In the offseason we'll hang out in my apartment listening to Abacab and hopefully he'll be able to use his fame and influence to get "Turn It On Again" into a Guitar Hero game already. The realist in me, however, thinks that it is far more likely that Iannetta is just a really terrible dancer and his teammates thought it would be funny.
• I thought it was a great confidence boost for Manny Corpas when Clint Hurdle deliberately sent him in to pitch with Albert Pujols, who had a relatively quiet night (1 for 5 with a double), coming up. Corpas struck him out and completed a scoreless inning. Hurdle erred, though, by doubling down and leaving the dethroned closer in to pitch another inning. Rick Ankiel hit a titanic home run that ended up being the difference in the game. However, the loss shouldn't hang on Corpas's shoulders -- he has enough of those. This one belongs to Mark Redman.
• Finally: Ankiel's throw to catch Omar Quintanilla attempting to stretch a double into a triple (with two outs, even -- go say hello to the pine, meat) from the very deepest recesses of Coors Field's altitude-adjusted outfield was the single best I have ever seen. I still can't believe how perfect it was. It looked as if he was still pitching and just flipping the ball to third for a force-out -- not the motion of the throw, but the path of the ball. Generally when you whip the ball it goes on a line, but this had a lazy arc like Ankiel could have, if necessary, thrown it harder still. Crazy. It was like the YouTube thing with Kobe Bryant jumping over the car, only I actually saw it happen. The friendly Cardinals fan who was sitting next to me and I were trying to think of another current player who could have made the same peg and the only names we could think of were Vladimir Guerrero and Jeff Francouer. But I don't know if even those guys could have done what Ankiel did. Oh, and he also doubled off Willy Taveras -- who can run a bit -- when Taveras tried to advance to third in the first. That one was routine by comparison, but it would have taken Willy, Ankiel's Colorado counterpart in center, two cut-off men.

In sports standing still is equal to falling backwards, and that's what the Rockies elected to do this offseason. With a payroll around $45 million, what was stopping them from dealing some of their surplus of young offensive prospects for pitching? What was keeping them from finding a two-way second baseman somewhere, or failing that, re-signing the defensively expert Kaz Matsui? Cheap owners who are pocketing the money from your playoff tickets and 2008 season-ticket deposits while the revenue-sharing money flows in. If you're not in it to win, sell the team.

I realize this might be a ludicrous example, but what was keeping the Rockies from trading for Johan Santana this offseason? They certainly could have offered a better package of prospects than the Mets, and maybe even an established major league star in Garrett Atkins. Sure, Colorado would have had to sign Santana to a $20 million/year deal, but... so what? Their payroll would still be less than one-third of the Yankees'. And they'd have a real pitching rotation instead of the Festival of Crap (with apologies to Aaron Cook) they have now.

One of the few guys who has pitched well for Colorado this season, Kip Wells, is now lost for some time because of a blood clot in his pitching hand. That hurts because Wells would have been an at least somewhat acceptable choice as a fill-in starter -- certainly better than Jorge De La Rosa, who got lit up like a forest fire in his start Saturday. It may be a coincidence, but Aaron Cook lost a year and a half of his career to a more serious blood clot. I wonder if there's some sort of deleterious effect pitching at altitude has to one's circulation.

You can only read Rob Neyer's recent column on the Rockies if you have ESPN Insider, but the title really sums it all up: Rockies simply not good. I could have told you that, Rob. Colorado isn't crazy to want to keep as their core a group of homegrown players, but the mess of a roster they have now shows the harm of overvaluing your own talent. The Rockies have too many third basemen and too many outfielders and not enough starting pitching.

The day after Jeff Baker (a third baseman playing out of position) and Clint Barmes had so much difficulty fielding at second and short, Clint Hurdle started Jonathan Herrera and Omar Quintanilla at those spots. That duo can't even threaten Willy Taveras's skills offensively, but they sure can flash the leather. Herrera was given the honor of "Baseball Tonight"'s #1 Web Gem on Sunday night. With the Rockies in full-on bullpen meltdown mode, the batphone to Colorado Springs is going to be ringing off the hook all summer, so who knows what the roster will look like in two weeks, let alone two months. But it will be a telling challenge of Hurdle's managerial acuity if he can manage to juggle his hitting middle infielders with his glove guys and settle both the lineup and the defense down. Would that the Rockies had some more guys who could play defense and hit a little. Maybe they'll pick one up when the fire sale trades begin in earnest in July.

I don't want to write about baseball. I don't even want to look at my page, to tell you the truth. But I do have some good notes from the game yesterday (which I went to under protest, having already paid for a ticket) that I guess I will hold my breath and share:

• I knocked Willy Taveras's OBP the other day and then I felt bad when I saw that at the beginning of Saturday's game, it stood at a very respectable .355, bolstered by a bunch of walks, not usually Willy's forte. Then of course Taveras went 0-for-5. Willy, my hatred for you might be the only thing that sustains me through this miserable season.
• It's hard to believe that two years in a row the Dodgers have gone out and spent big free-agent money on a centerfielder who can't play. In the second inning Todd Helton hit a dribbler through the middle and by the time Andruw Jones got to it he was on second. Todd Helton should not be able to stretch a single into a double off of Andruw Jones, or at least not the one I remember. It's possible Jones just wasn't paying attention, but that's not any better. It's probably worse. Jones looked completely lost at the plate, too -- the one single he had he was clearly guessing on.
• This is how bad Rockies pitching is now: In the 6th inning Colorado made three phenomenal defensive plays, two diving catches by Taveras (whose defense I am finally coming around on, although I still wish he'd hit a cutoff man once in a while, just for variety's sake) and a stab and throw to home to catch a runner by Jeff Baker. Every batter in the inning who didn't walk hit the ball extremely hard. Even with the three great plays the Dodgers added on two more runs, totaling 12 for the game -- and this is not a very good offensive Dodgers team. They had more guys in the lineup hitting under .200 than the Rockies did, and that's saying something.
• The photo that the Los Angeles public relations department has provided to away teams for use on their Jumbotrons of James Loney makes him look uncannily like classic child's toy Woolly Willy.
• Twice during the game the Rockies saw high popups that ought to have been caught fall for singles in no man's land between second base, shortstop, and centerfield. The lack of experience playing together that Jeff Baker and Clint Barmes have is going to be a recurring nightmare for Rockies fans this season.

The Rockies did win today, but it was Aaron Cook's day in the rotation. Are you prepared for one win per week from here on out? Rockies baseball -- catch the misery!

That sound you hear is tens of thousands of Denver residents flipping off their TV's, putting their World Series collectibles on eBay, and speed-dialing their friends to see if they can rid of their tickets for this weekend's series against Los Angeles. A season that should have been a bold new beginning for the Colorado franchise has gone completely down the tubes in a mere month. How did I not see this coming?

First and foremost, Troy Tulowitzki, who has been stuck in an again predictable sophomore slump, has torn his quad. He could be back in six weeks, but he won't, because this is Rockies baseball, and except for last year, the baseball gods freaking hate the Rockies. The team's groundball staff is going to get pounded (even worse) with the rangeless, scatter-armed Clint Barmes playing short and the comeback the offense was scheduled to make probably is now delayed further still.

Tulo's injury is the exclamation point, but the Rockies have been playing consistently garbage baseball since Opening Day. A few individuals are having good seasons -- Barmes' return to the starting lineup is a nice story, Matt Holliday and Garrett Atkins continue to rake like the professional hitters they are, and Aaron Cook has been quietly excellent -- but as a team Colorado sucks. The bullpen can't hold leads, the hitters persistently manage to produce box scores where they have 10 or more hits and 3 or fewer runs, and the starting pitching past Cook is walk-happy and deeply susceptible to the big inning. How is this the same team that cruised to the NL pennant last year?

I wasn't planning on writing on the Rockies at all until something that wasn't horrible happened, but the Tulowitzki injury kind of demands it. I need more time to organize my thoughts on how Dan O'Dowd and ownership have failed their team and their fans. This team didn't have to be a playoff qualifier again this season to consolidate last year's gains, they just needed to not completely suck. And lo, they completely suck. The major problems? Not investing more money in real starting pitching talent, leaving Franklin Morales in the major league rotation despite his not demonstrating readiness in the spring, allowing the disorganized mass of infielders on the roster to futz up the continuity and the fluidity of the Rockies' wondrous defense from last year, and continuing to bat powerless OBP sink Willy Taveras leadoff because... uhh, he's fast.

What has happened to the Rockies this season reinforces everything MLB's critics are always saying about competitive imbalance. I refuse to refer to the Rockies as "small-market"; they're not small market, they just have poor, cheap owners. The Nuggets, Avalanche, and Broncos all have huge payrolls. But for teams in genuine small markets, the example is still instructive. Poor teams can get to the playoffs one year if everything breaks right for them, but the cost of maintaining that winning team will prove prohibitive -- and even if you do manage to bring everybody back, as the Rockies mostly did, there's no guarantee that everyone will perform as they did. And there's no question of adding another big free-agent star to your already-contending team. The Clevelands and Tampa Bays can only dream about getting a Johan Santana or Vladimir Guerrero.

And that's kind of lame. But not as lame as this Rockies team is going to be with Barmes playing shortstop in front of The Staff That Never Strikes Anybody Out, Ever (25th in the majors). Somehow I doubt a magical September run is going to save this disaster. By the time football season begins, the Rockies will be as forgotten as the Nuggets' playoff "run." Well, it was nice having a readership for just that little while. I should have known not to get used to it.

It's only one game, but the Rockies' victory over the Cubs yesterday meant a great deal. It would have been extremely painful for Aaron Cook to pitch as well as he did and for Colorado to lose once again, as they did in decent starts by Jeff Francis and Franklin Morales during the bullpen's four-game blown save streak. After the second inning Cook went on a stretch where he retired 16 in a row; the game was crisp and speedy and treat to watch thanks to the quick work of Cook and Chicago's Jason Marquis.

In winning, the Rockies looked like the opposite of the team that's been in the doldrums of late: they played excellent defense, they got runners on and knocked them in, they got notable contributions from their bench. And in the ninth, instead of Manny Corpas hanging his head as Cubs rounded the bases, it was Brian Fuentes, like it was 2006 all over again, coming in to finish things out. Fuentes was devastatingly effective -- as he has been all season save for one brushfire last week -- and made Japanese Cubs sensation Kosuke Fukodome, in particular, look just dreadful at the plate. I don't believe Fukodome saw any of the three pitches he swung at from Fuentes.

Clint Hurdle has acted faster this season to replace players in the lineup who aren't performing than at any time in his tenure as Rockies manager. It's as if a switch in Clint's mind flipped over after the '07 postseason and he's decided that the Rockies are officially Contenders now and he must manage as such. What's positive about Hurdle's new mindset is that he doesn't have a Dusty Baker-like fixation on weathered veterans. Clint's manuevers to improve the Rockies' offense have included benching the young Willy Taveras (for whom the bunt singles just aren't falling this year) in favor of wily vet Scott Podsednik, it's true. But he's also increased Chris Iannetta's playing time since the young catcher is hitting better than Yorvit Torrealba out of the gate, and he's been awfully crafty at finding at-bats for Ryan Spilborghs and Jeff Baker. The switch from Jayson Nix -- it was wishful thinking on the part of the Rockies that the glove-ly Nix was going to hit in the major leagues -- to Clint Barmes is merely one Rockies product taking the role of another.

So what about Brian Fuentes, who's not particularly old but a veteran on this Rockies team, taking over for the young Manny Corpas? Will Corpas rebound out of the closer's role, and will Fuentes regain the 40-save form he had two years ago? Dan O'Dowd would very much like to see both happen. Corpas's early-season struggles are precisely what the doctor ordered for the Colorado GM, since Fuentes is a free agent after this season. If Brian pitches well for the rest of the first half -- and Corpas gets his composure back pitching mop-up duty for a few months -- O'Dowd would be foolish not to listen to offers for the lefty Fuentes, who would surely be the most desirable reliever on the market.

The Rockies have other guys who could close besides Fuentes and Corpas. Taylor Buchholz, like Fuentes, seems to pitch better and better the later he enters a game. If Jason Hirsh's recovery goes well, one of the Rockies' tender young starters could make the switch -- Ubaldo Jimenez seems more suited due to his stuff, but Franklin Morales' wildness makes him a five-inning pitcher, and he might be more focused in a one-inning role. That would be more of a plan for next season, however, since you can't really convert a guy from starting to closing in the middle of the season. Were either of those young starters to get mildly injured, however, having them work their way back in the bullpen might be wise. And of course all young pitchers are injuries waiting to happen.

The question facing the Rockies and the other teams in the NL West isn't so much, Are we this bad? as Are the Diamondbacks this good? If Arizona continues to score at a near league-leading pace and pitches up to expectations, there's no way anyone in the division is going to catch them. The Padres can't score, the Rockies' rotation is shaky, the Dodgers have all those albatross veteran contracts clogging their lineup, and the Giants are simply horrible. I thought that the division would once again be won, as it was last year, around the 90-win barrier. If the D-Backs you now see are the real deal, they're going past that and then some.

With all of the buzz about how the AL is home to all of the game's stars and showcase teams, the shape of the playoffs this year might be quite different than last. Rather than 4 AL teams with the look of champions and a handful of NL teams that were lucky to even get in with their records, it could be -- could be -- the other way around. The Cubs and D-Backs could approach 100 wins while no one in the AL save Boston gets close to that number. And no matter what their record is, the winner of the three-way race in the NL East between Atlanta, Philadelphia, and the Mets is going to be a battle-hardened team. (So probably not the Mets.)

It's a new development that the National League might have two real good teams, but it isn't a new thing that pretty much everybody save the Giants and the Pirates has a chance at the wild card. There may be some better teams in the senior circuit this season, but there aren't going to be any races like the '93 NL West. The wild card is going to be there in that 86-88 win range and the Rockies have enough offense to get to that level, assuming the bullpen at least holds together to give a league-average showing.

Should the Rockies prepare for a playoff race... and shop guys like Brian Fuentes? Of course they should. The Rockies are a self-defined Small Market Team, and thus they must always keep one eye on next year. Colorado still desperately needs its own young ace starter -- sorry, Jeff Francis, you're #1 in my heart, but not in my dream postseason rotation -- and a trade target like Fuentes could absolutely shake a prospect of that echelon loose, if O'Dowd is doing his homework.

Manny Corpas is out as closer and Brian Fuentes is in after the bullpen blew its fourth game in a row last night. I can't begin to explain how miserable this is. A season after they supposedly broke out of irrelevance for good, the Rockies are burying themselves in April, the way they do every year (including last season!) and as a fan I feel powerless. What can you do with a team that suddenly loses its ability to finish out ballgames? I'm hoping that the relevant comparison here is the road trip at midseason '07 where Fuentes initially lost his closer's job to Corpas. Colorado had one road trip where they just couldn't get a save and then the trip ended and the team started functioning properly again.

Were I Clint Hurdle, I wouldn't employ such a basic strategy as taking away the ninth inning from one guy and handing it to another one guy. I think when times are as tough as they are for the Rockies bullpen right now you have to play matchups. Fuentes is every bit as likely as Corpas to give Colorado fans heartburn in the final innings, despite a hot start. Making Fuentes the designated finisher also robs Hurdle of Brian's born ability as a lefthanded matchup guy. The way I would play it is to have Fuentes take the mound when there's a string of lefties coming up and otherwise play the hot hand between Matt Herges, Corpas, and Taylor Buchholz. Rather than wrecking Corpas's confidence by 
"demoting" him and possibly Fuentes' as well the first time he can't hold a lead, Clint could be bolstering everyone's mood by sharing the wealth around a little bit. After Corpas has a few good innings under controlled conditions, I'd give him back the closer's job -- with the caveat that Fuentes is still going to get the call when dangerous lefthanders loom. Of course that would be modern and progressive and askew from modern baseball conventional wisdom. It'll never happen.

Will it cost the Rockies more games? That remains to be seen. In any event, I'm going out to the ballpark again today. Hopefully the team will have more luck against my hometown Cubs than they have in the recent past.

I went to the ballgame tonight with one of my best friends and my girlfriend. I was glad we were going to this game in particular, for several reasons. One, Jeff Francis is my favorite Colorado player and he was due for a victory. After getting cuffed around in his first two starts (and in the Rockies' rain-aborted Opening Day game in St. Louis) the Channel pitched extremely well in his last start, a showdown with San Diego's Jake Peavy. The Rockies won that game (eventually) but obviously Francis didn't get the win.

I felt pretty confident that this was his night, facing the Phillies and noted family man Brett Myers. Going into the game the Rockies had blown two they should have won, one in Houston and one at home to Philadelphia. In both cases it was the bullpen that was to blame, punting perfectly good leads granted it by the offense and the starter. Tonight was supposed to be the night the Colorado relievers redeemed themselves. Didn't happen. Manny Corpas got whacked around in the ninth with the Rockies leading by one, Clint Hurdle made a peculiar decision to walk the badly slumping Ryan Howard in favor of the smoking hot Pat Burrell and Burrell immediately doubled in the loaded bases -- so much for that win.

The Rockies were troubled by defensive issues the whole evening. Clint Barmes got a spot start at shortstop and was having tremendous difficulty making straight throws to Todd Helton at first. Barmes and Jeff Baker, not a natural second baseman, missed tagging the sack twice for what should have been double plays. Helton committed an error at first in the ninth to begin Philadelphia's winning rally. Willy Taveras air-mailed a cutoff man, leading to a second-and-third situation where it should have been first and third. It was not a lot of fun to watch. At least Francis was able to hold things together for seven innings and put himself in a position to get a win. Naturally it was stolen from him, but that counts as progress. Jeff was troublingly wild, walking in a run and having difficulty locating all evening. It looked early on like he was going to put more stress still on the bullpen by getting sent to an early shower -- he'd thrown more than 70 pitches after four -- but he gutted it out and left with a lead. But it didn't take. Three straight games blown by the bullpen is pushing up against the point where everyone on the team starts to freak out. Soon the hitters start pressing because they think they have to score 10 runs to win every game. The starters start overthrowing because they don't expect to get any support. And the bullpen guys themselves start really going around in circles. This needs to stop now.

UPDATE: In my disgust over the state of the Rockies' bullpen, I completely forgot that during the game last night a rather comely female streaker made her way onto the Coors outfield grass and got down to her bra before security got to her. Jayson Werth, who was in centerfield at the time, had to cover his entire face in his glove to hide his uncontrollable laughter.

With their death-defying 22-inning goose egg-a-thon prohibiting them from arriving in Texas until 7:20 a.m., the Rockies have started a makeshift lineup including bench players Scott Podsednik, Ryan Spilborghs, Jeff Baker, and Chris Iannetta. Iron men who played the whole game last night and started today: Troy Tulowitzki (obviously), Clint Barmes, Willy Taveras, and Garrett Atkins.

Even with the whole bench playing and the Rockies exhausted from travel... Colorado scored six runs in the top of the first inning.

Can we finally all agree that for as much as people have complained for years about the offense-nurturing nature of Coors Field that the deep alleys and sea air of Petco Park are just as bad? For a time in the game last night it looked like neither team was going to be able to score at all. Then it looked like they were never going to be able to score again. What's unfair about this is that, at least after strikeout-happy starters Jeff Francis (an incredibly important bounceback start for the Channel, let's not forget) and Jake Peavy came out of the game, the Rockies were bashing line drives that died at the warning track and the Padres were hitting into groundout after groundout. The entire San Diego bullpen seems to be accustomed to throwing high fastballs they know are going to get tattooed... all the way to the warning track. Todd Helton and Matt Holliday hit multiple shots that should have ended the game much earlier than it did, but the menace of Petco sucked them all into outfielders' gloves.

Willy Taveras had a good game, indeed, scoring both runs, but I still think it might be nice for the Rockies to have a leadoff hitter with more than 1 RBI by now. (My nominee, Troy Tulowitzki, is now up to three with the game-winner from last night. Jimmy Rollins has six.) It was the Rockies' bullpen (not to forget Francis's seven three-hit innings) to whom the night belonged. Brian Fuentes, Taylor Buchholz (who was lights-out throwing first-pitch strikes and fanned three in two innings -- give this guy a start already), Micah Bowie, Matt Herges, Manny Corpas, Ryan Speier, and Kip Wells (four shutout innings) allowed only eight collective hits in fifteen innings of work.

Thanks to these expanded box scores we have nowadays, I can tell you that the Colorado pitchers forced 31 groundballs versus 17 flyballs while the ratio for San Diego was 25 to 20. That doesn't even tell the whole story -- a lot of the Padre "flyballs" were popups, and the Rockies were driving the ball regularly, particularly the middle of the lineup. I draw two things from this -- first of all, Petco needs some kind of anti-humidor to harden the balls and make them go farther. Second of all, if you trade for a Padres reliever with scary good stats and expect them to get as many flyball outs in your ballpark, you do so at your own peril.

I would have liked to be on the comment board following this epic with you folks at home last night, but there's a funny story behind that. I had plans with my girlfriend last evening and when she arrived I asked if it was OK if we listened to records until the game was over. I thought it was going to be an important contest last night, and boy, was I right. I wasn't expecting to see what I did, but I was hoping to see Colorado claw back to just one game under .500, something it took them most of the first half to finish doing last season. When the game went into extra innings, she was understandably cranky, so I explained to her -- at length -- how it's an essential part of the code of who I am that I never bail out on my team during extra-inning games. Never. I've been that way since I was ten years old. Of course, after giving this speech in the 11th or so, I was compelled to watch the entirety of the game not only because my code demands it and you my readers deserve it, but also because to not have done so would have make me look like an enormous hypocrite.

Kels (recognize) asked in the comment section what I think the ideal Rockies lineup would be. I started to write a massively long response, but then I realized more people would read it if I made it a post.

Here is what I would do: I would set up a home/road platoon. Play Willy Taveras at Coors for his defense, since the rear flank of the Rockies' lineup all tend to turn into big producers at home and on the road the Rockies need all the help they can get (and nobody, underline nobody, has an outfield bigger than Coors Field's). So at home:

Tulowitzki
Helton
Holliday
Atkins
Hawpe
Barmes/Nix (probably more of the former)
Taveras
Torrealba/Iannetta (in a 3:2 proportion)
Pitcher's Spot

Why bat Willy seventh? Well, you obviously can't bat him eighth -- his entire offensive value is his basestealing ability. You can't put a basestealer on right before the pitcher because the pitcher's always going to bunt the guy over if he gets on anyway. He's not really an RBI person, but leadoff hitters get more RBI opportunities than #7 hitters simply by virtue of coming up far more often. The other thing I like about this for the Rockies is that Yorvit Torrealba hits significantly better with runners in scoring position. Willy leads off and gets on, steals second, then either Yorvit (or Iannetta!) knocks him in with a single or moves him over with a sac fly or grounder to the right side of the infield. Then with one out the pitcher squeezes him in. Perfect, right? And you expect little smallball one-run rallies like that from the bottom of your lineup. You want the TOP of the Rockies lineup to be having three, four-run innings.

Having Troy Tulowitzki hit leadoff is one of those "Your time will come" things. He's going to be a 3-4-5 hitter soon but right now with the guys they have he's the best candidate. Obviously he has to bust his slump first.

And Helton second? Makes so much sense I don't know why they haven't thought of it yet. He's on base all the dang time and he owns the strike zone.

Besides, both Helton and Holliday should bat in the first inning in every game. That maximizes the possibility of the Rockies getting out to early leads. And, you know, at home games it's cool to see the team's megastars all in the first inning (wishfully projecting Tulowitzki becomes a megastar).

Then on the road:

Tulo
Helton
Holliday
Atkins
Hawpe
Spilborghs
Barmes/Nix
Torrealba/Iannetta
Pitcher's Spot

There are a few wrinkles. You can't start Ryan Spilborghs on the road and bench him at home all year long -- the poor guy would get a complex if everyone else's numbers looked Coors-sized and his looked as if he played for the Padres. That's all well because he can serve as a rightfielder for Hawpe against tough lefties. Hawpe continues to improve against southpaws, as you may have observed during the Rockies' big ninth last night, but everybody needs a day off every now and then. Likewise, Clint Barmes and Jayson Nix both need to get their share of Coors Field starts -- so that they might drink from its restorative waters.

The Rockies are out to a cold start on the road in April... like every year. After managing to get their first game of the year from the Diamondbacks in Phoenix they've moved on to San Diego, whose home ballpark has been a chamber of horrors more often than not for the Rockies since its construction. They lost the first game but they're out to a decent start tonight, leading 2-0 as of this writing.

Clint Barmes, who's been playing great as the first infielder off the bench, is getting a chance to start at second tonight. If Barmes continues to drive in runs that will be bad news for Jayson Nix, who after a bit of a rally is back down to .161. Would the Rockies send Nix down if Barmes claimed the second base job? As we've discussed, they have a bit of an issue with cheating young guys of crucial development time by keeping them as bench players in the majors and then giving them hardly any at-bats at all. Despite this history, I suspect that Nix would remain as a bench player. His defense at second is highly regarded and Barmes isn't really a second baseman. Managers love to establish late-inning defensive platoons because it makes them look like they're doing something.

As I expected, the moment I brought up the Tigers' dreadful start, they turned it around. After writing that stuff I made a point of watching Detroit play Minnesota that evening and naturally after teasing me through the first few innings (three early errors!) they blew up in the eighth inning that night to blow away the Twins. Then they won again and tonight they're hammering Cleveland 11-2 in the 7th. This is the whole reason I waited as long as I did before acknowledging the Leyland Boys' struggles. But given our antagonistic history I couldn't let it go forever. If I just could have waited until they fell to like 3-17... oh well, no use crying over spilt milk now.

Things correct themselves: Baltimore and Kansas City and Oakland are not the best teams in the American League. St. Louis's starting pitching is not going to be excellent, or even good, all year long. And the Rockies aren't going to stay at a winning percentage of .385... well, it's highly unlikely.

Update: Colorado was hanging on to a one-run lead in a typical Petco game when suddenly the Rockies went SACPOP on the Padres bullpen in the ninth and won 10-2. Any win in Southern California at any time is seldom-heard but good news for the Rockies, and it was a sweet night in particular for Troy Tulowitzki, who finally got his first (and second) RBI of the year, and Clint Barmes, who made the most of the rare opportunity to start with two batted in of his own. That gives Barmes, a month ago thought likely to be traded or released outright, seven on the year -- tied for second on the club! And in some 40 at-bats fewer than Garrett Atkins, with whom he's deadlocked! That's so crazy. Jayson Nix, prepare for bench duty.

Finally, on their sixth try of the season, the Rockies beat the Diamondbacks yesterday, exploding for 13 runs. This was encouraging to see for many reasons. It snapped Arizona's winning streak and hopefully slowed the momentum of a team trying to win the NL West right here in April. In 11 games prior to Sunday Colorado had scored 33 runs. The team's OBP was collectively under .300 when I last checked it. With 15 hits and 6 walks in one game, it's jumped up to .323. Aren't all of these early-season statistical curiosities amusing? I love this time of year.

The Rockies are still two games under .500 but the feeling around the team has to be that the storm has been weathered. Troy Tulowitzki and Brad Hawpe are still scuffling offensively but Yorvit Torrealba and Jayson Nix both had big hits this week. You look at the numbers up and down the Rockies' lineup and it's starting to look more natural. Garrett Atkins, somewhat the forgotten man in Colorado's run last fall, continues to be reliably productive. Todd Helton, now hitting third, seems to get on base two or three times every game. If Tulowitzki continues to struggle, Clint Hurdle might wish to think about moving him to seventh or eighth and pushing everyone ahead of him up a spot. Helton, who doesn't hit a lot of homers any longer but has superhuman plate control, would be an unconventional but effective #2 guy. I wasn't a huge fan of the lineup Hurdle used often last season with Willy Taveras batting leadoff and Kaz Matsui hitting second. It seemed to me that having two guys in a row at the top with no home run pop whatsoever was less than optimal.

Theoretically Tulowitzki ought to be a huge improvement, but the poor guy doesn't have a single RBI on the season thus far. And Clint Barmes gave him a breather at short on Sunday and promptly knocked in four runs. It's a classic sophomore slump for Tulowitzki, but he needn't worry about losing his starting job -- the organization is too invested in his continuing success. Colorado has had a bit of a problem the past few seasons getting prospects hung up between starting in AAA and playing regularly in the majors. Ask Jeff Baker or Chris Iannetta. That's not going to happen to Tulowitzki. If he doesn't hit all year -- well, he and Khalil Greene and Yuniesky Betancourt can start a support group. They can have guest speakers come and show PowerPoint presentations about newfangled defensive metrics.

The major reason that I finally feel like things are all right again with the Rockies, and at the very least they'll nip at the heels of the wild card race all year, is Matt Holliday. Matt Holliday is so freaking good. I forget sometimes, because I have the sort of personality that is drawn more to relief pitchers and glove guys, but Matt Holliday is one of the best baseball players on the planet right now and the Rockies are lucky to have him for as long as they can hold on to him. The double he hit in the eighth of yesterday's game against Doug Slaten was such a lovely swing I watched it back about four times on the TiVo. It was a low pitch, probably a ball, but Holliday was so locked in he simply bent his knees, swung through, and hit the baseball perfectly square. I don't want to praise Holliday for swinging at pitches out of the strike zone, but he's not like most players. Most guys get themselves out swinging at pitches out of the zone because even if they can hit them there's no way they're going to be able to drive it. But there's always a few genetic freaks who have such strength and hand-eye coordination that all they do is see the ball and hit the ball. Vladimir Guerrero is this era's most notable example. Holliday has become an MVP-level player because he can absolutely kill anything in the strike zone and because he has the skill and the judgement every now and then to extend his zone for something he can drive. He's so good.

You know who isn't good, and it's hilarious? The Tigers. The Tigers are terrible. I was thinking going into the season that they were due for some injuries to their starters (which indeed has happened, Dontrelle Willis is out already) and that their bullpen was going to be wretched. Well... their rotation is quickly becoming a shambles (Kenny Rogers might just be done), their bullpen is even worse than projected, and shockingly, nobody at all is hitting. I expected there might be a certain amount of attrition involved with the high number of older offensive players Detroit has (Polanco, Guillen, Sheffield, Renteria, Ivan Rodriguez) but I thought it would be minor and the strength of the lineup would be able to make them an 88-win team (or so). I was very pessimistic about the Cabrera deal (although I am surprised by how miserably Miguel Cabrera has begun his career as a Tiger) because I felt like it didn't quite get the Tigers past Cleveland this year or next. That's their window -- having mortgaged their future for Cabrera, absent another huge payroll increase they're going to be pretty bad for a spell after their late-30's core retires, declines, or moves on.

Only now, maybe they're already terrible. Who knew? Certainly not fans in Detroit, who are "way past the point of panic" if the Free Press's Tiger blogger is to be believed. I don't know if the Tigers will pick it up or not, but the historical record certainly suggests that most teams that get out to 2-10 starts don't follow that up with a postseason appearance. Whether the Tigers' season is doomed or not kind of depends on whether any of the other AL Central teams start playing at a higher level. Detroit has a two-game series against Minnesota today and tomorrow (I'm watching the first game as I write this, the Twins are up in the second and the Tigers just left two runners on base) then takes a road trip through Cleveland and Toronto. Those are two pretty good teams. There has definitely got to be a point -- I don't know where it is, but it's there -- where you get so far below .500 that your chances of making the playoffs become infinitesimal.

That could be kind of an interesting situation in Detroit -- if you're not a Tigers fan, I suppose. As some readers may know we here at Bad Altitude have strong feelings about Jim Leyland, who completely bailed on the Rockies after less than one season as the highest-paid manager in the game. He's definitely one those Larry Brown types who gets immediate results but wears out his welcome with great speed. But what about this Tigers team? What if they really are as bad as they have looked in the first few weeks? What are we to make of that? Talentwise I think that Detroit has a roster that ought to finish with a win total in the high eighties, meaning they have a fair chance of winning anywhere between say 85 and 94 games. If they end up winning way less than that -- if they finish 10 games under .500 or more -- something crazy has to have happened, right? Is it possible that the championship expectations placed on a good but not dominant roster were enough pressure to psychologically devastate the entire lineup? Probably not, no, but mix a little bad luck with a little bit of old-fashioned early season pressing, keep losing and throw in a lot of sniping from ESPN's talking heads, and soon you've got a self-fulfilling prophecy. Maybe things won't get any better for Detroit. Maybe they'll get worse.

Oh, man, that would be so great. I hate the Tigers (well, mostly I just hate Leyland) and I can honestly say that I would get more satisfaction out of them having a disastrous season than even the Yankees (because if the Yankees don't win their division Boston will, and Boston if you haven't realized it yet is the new boss, same as the old boss). Detroit almost certainly isn't going back to the depths of 2003 (43-119), but man, wouldn't it be hilarious if they did? Right now based on their 2-10 record they project to 27-135. Did I mention that I love this time of year?

Hey, the Rockies are on Fox's regional broadcast today! I can't remember that happening at any point in the last three years. Progress has arrived. Unfortunately, Colorado has been unable to do much against their division rivals in the first four games they've played this year. An offensive burst in the last game against Atlanta (the scheduled fourth game of the series was snowed out, giving the Rockies a three-game sweep) proved impossible to sustain against old nemesis Brandon Webb. Jeff Francis got knocked around again, which is certainly discouraging. And today Colorado must face the Diamondbacks' marquee offseason acquisition, Dan Haren, another guy like Webb who keeps the ball down and throws strikes.

On Tuesday when I went to see the game at Coors Field it was distressing how many of the Rockies listed on the scoreboard had sub-.200 averages next to their names. That's improved a little but there are still some regulars waiting to hit -- Troy Tulowitzki, Jayson Nix, Yorvit Torrealba, Brad Hawpe. One good homestand for the squad will fix all of that, but if the Rockies are finally going to win some games on the road this year they will need at least good situational hitting from the bottom flank of their lineup.

I have been concerned about Clint Hurdle running too much -- his decision to give Scott Podsednik the last outfielders' spot was an ill omen -- but thus far he hasn't really had enough baserunners to get himself in trouble. Willy Taveras is off to a good start on the bases (4-for-4) if not at the plate and although Hurdle got Tulowitzki nailed badly a couple games ago it was a worthy two-out gamble. The Rockies' real problem right now is a team OBP of .299. This series against Arizona and the next one in San Diego will challenge them to improve upon that. The young Rockies hitters can't wait for Coors Field to pick up their numbers. Not this year. Not when they're on regional TV.

Colorado's offense is still having some difficulty finding second gear, but two home wins in a row against a good team (Atlanta) goes a long way towards making me feel like disaster has been averted. Ubaldo Jimenez was wild in the game yesterday, walking his opposite number Jair Jurrjens twice, but Jimenez avoided the big inning and the Rockies bullpen was stout. The result was a one-run win, usually Arizona's specialty but nothing to sneeze at at this early juncture. I still expect to see the Rockies exploding for a seven- or eight-run win one of these days and won't be completely at ease until that happens. But the difference between early last season, when the franchise was genuinely dysfunctional, and right now, where they just have some bats in a slump, is obvious. The Rockies have the middle relief corps of a team that expects to win ballgames, and lo and behold, they might just win some for that very reason.

It's funny how Clint Hurdle forms bullpen allegiances -- it's usually his habit to pitch whichever guy has the biggest name in high-leverage situations until such time as the guy melts down. Jorge Julio, Jose Mesa, LaTroy Hawkins, and their ilk aren't around this season which must be making it tough on Clint. Luis Vizcaino, this offseason's answer to "late-inning guy you've heard of before," is injured. So Clint has been going to Taylor Buchholz with encouraging frequency. I'm a fan of Buchholz (he's the only guy the Rockies got from Houston in the Jason Jennings trade with any meaningful positive value) and he's been quite good early this year.

The Rockies weren't particularly affected by it, but the early-season schedule this year made no sense. Why were teams playing one- and two-game series? That seems extremely wrong to me. Making the Braves and Nationals play a game last Sunday to serve as the second opener, then start three-game series in different towns the next day seems cruel and unusual. And also pointless -- why couldn't they just have played two more games in Washington? All of these extra opening days need to go. They should just have the one.

First-week panic is too easy. The offense hasn't shown up at all for Colorado, even after a much-needed 2-1 victory tonight. The Rockies have scored 12 runs in 7 games, which wasn't exactly the plan. Even when they've gotten good pitching -- and they've gotten their share -- they've lost with the offense sputtering along like that. A fine start from Aaron Cook tonight was saved by a timely Matt Holliday blast, but the Rockies have hardly seen a big hit besides all week. I hope that this is the low point of the season and a team that doesn't have much of a history of anything besides slow starts shakes it off and starts providing the league-leading scoring we've been conditioned to expect.

The Rockies could have easier opponents against whom to get back on track than Atlanta. The Braves are division-title good, once again. The National League is improving in places but it's still a down league. The Rockies need a warm stretch to counter their flat start. Crowds at Coors after Opening Day have been encouraging, but that's partly due to the organization spreading out the celebration of the World Series season over all three games of the opening series. It remains to be seen how crowds will be for coming home series against the Giants and Twins.