A possible good effect of the All-Star Game: I was waiting for this regular-season game between two bad teams to start all day, and I watched the whole thing from beginning to end. I was glad of the opportunity to do so. Maybe baseball's relevance crisis in the instant-access age stems from its overavailability.

Despite Todd Helton and Troy Tulowitzki being on the disabled list, the Rockies have started the second half 2-0. While the official web site says the team is thinking about getting into the race over the trade deadline, the Fox Sports Rocky announcers were selling Brian Fuentes' mechanics pretty hard in the ninth inning. Seems like Rockies fans would know Fuentes' motion by ths point seeing as they've had them to look at for the better part of three seasons.

We can't draw any positive conclusions about Colorado in the second half until they've played some road games. Nothing has changed on that front.