As a lifelong bad golfer, it's a real treat to watch all of these big shots completely airmail green after green.

Here's a surprising stat (third item): Slightly more than half of the Rockies' games have been decided by two runs or less, and their record is 7-11 in one-run games and 6-9 in two-run games. From this I suppose you could gather that they've been a little unlucky and could have come out on top a few more times in these close matches, but they'd still be 9-23 in games decided by three runs or more.

I'm not entirely sure, but I don't think "offensively flirtatious" means what Troy E. Renck thinks it does...Eddy Garabito never got his shot in his Baltimore...this notes column has a lot of interesting tidbits. Dan Miceli is in and Blaine Neal is out, not surprisingly. Aaron Cook is set to return after the All-Star break, it'll be interesting to see if the Rockies can go with a modified four-man rotation until then. Jay Payton for Dustan Mohr is under discussion, although Payton is raising quite a stink in Boston about not playing every day. There's no reason to assume he would do so in Denver, either. Tampa Bay's Alex Gonzalez and Pedro Astacio, late of the Rangers, are acquisition possibilities as well. As far as Gonzalez goes, the Rockies would do just as well sticking with Relaford, Garabito, and Luis Gonzalez at short, as Alex Gonzalez is a) more expensive and b) not better than any of those guys. As far as Astacio or any other pitcher with a modicum of big-league credibility goes,  hey, step right up.