My first Rockies road trip begins this evening as I fly east to Chicago. I've probably been to more games at Wrigley Field than any other major league venue (the Oakland Coliseum might be close), but it's still hard not to excited about a trip to the best place to see a baseball game in the world. Too bad the Cubs play there. Look for me on TV on Friday!

ESPN's new power rankings are up. We're down to #30. Seems to me for the rest of the season who claims this spot between the Rockies and Kansas City will be whichever team is on the road. Of course, the Royals are angling to trade Mike Sweeney and the only guy the Rockies will definitely move will be addition by subtraction, so there's that. And SI.com has us in the lofty climes of 28-land!

Jamie Quirk: "Sometimes you have to reach bottom before you can fight your way out of it." Todd Helton: "I don't know if there is a lower point." Guys? We're #28! Comings and goings: Clint Hurdle should be back for Friday's game (his daughter was discharged from the hospital Wednesday), Aaron Miles may go on the DL (stay as long as you want, hack-boy), Chin-Hui Tsao is officially out for the season. J.D. Closser might be on the way out as well, which would be silly. Let the guy play out of it! We're 13-31, what difference could it possibly make? Look at the approach the Brewers, a much better team than Colorado, have taken with rookie shortstop J.J. Hardy, who broke out with three doubles in the just-concluded series. Part of rebuilding is giving young guys ample time to prove they either can or cannot play, not giving their playing time to veteran known quantities for the sake of finishing 28 games out instead of 30.

Just glancing at the probables for this weekend's series, about which more later: Mark Prior is going for the Cubs on Friday, against Joe Kennedy. That'll end well. The last time I saw the Rockies in Chicago, they lost 11-0.