Hey, who's all set for Day 2 of the MLB Draft? Anybody? Anybody?

All of a sudden the rose-colored glasses are back on. Brad Hawpe is a star! Kaz Matsui's special! Woody Paige wants a candelight dinner somewhere private with Troy Tulowitzki! What happened? Yeah, the Rockies pulled out a series win against Houston with some stirring late-inning heroics on Wednesday and Thursday, but this is the Astros. They're one of the worst teams in the majors. It's wonderful that Colorado managed to get to Roy Oswalt yesterday, but on Tuesday they only scored one run against Wandy Rodriguez. Meanwhile the Diamondbacks and Padres just keep winning, leaving our resurgent hometown squad 7 1/2 back and fading.

The Rockies have pulled within two games of .500, which is amazing considering how few series wins they had until two weeks ago. Since getting embarrassed by Kansas City at home on May 20th the Rockies are 11-5 and 4-0-1 in series. But you'll have to excuse me if I see the glass still as half empty. The Rockies have had stretches in each of the past few seasons where they've gotten within hailing distance of .500. This year and the last, these warm patches have been driven predominantly by a sudden spike of effectivness in starting pitching. No matter what the engine, if it's any time after the start of summer vacation, it's a tease until proven otherwise with this club. An interleague series in Baltimore might afford the team the opportunity to reach that magical break-even point for an ephemeral day or two before the Rockies have to move on to Boston and face reality: They're still not very good.

And to believe I missed it because of the draft -- Willy Taveras hit a home run yesterday. A real one, with the ball going over the fence and everything. Big Willy Style now has five homers in 1,413 plate appearances over his career, or one every 282.6. That means he might get another one in September of this year, so make a note of it.

In the notes at the end of this blurb about Casey Weathers it is suggested that Taveras might get some starts at DH during the interleague road trip. Man, I'm just going to let that one pass without comment. In the very same piece you can learn that Rodrigo Lopez and Leo Mazzone will not be double-dating with Woody and Tulo.

Shoot, what's that thing I always do at the end of every post when I can't think of any other way to conclude? Oh, right, I do the pitching matchups. Francis-Steve Trachsel, Lopez-Jeremy Guthrie, and Hirsh-Erik Bedard. Looking ahead, Josh Fogg is scheduled to face Curt Schilling at Fenway on Wednesday. Having just reflected about my not-so-close encounter with a past Schilling no-hitter bid, I can't allow Curt's inexplicable decision to shake off Jason Varitek and throw a four-seamer right down the middle of the pipe to Shannon Stewart with two outs in the ninth yesterday to pass without comment. That was dumb, Schill. I guess you still have your World Series rings and millions of dollars to console you, but it was dumb.