Sunday, July 3, 2011

Rock Solid Recrap: Sundays. Bloody Sundays.

You know the drill by now. Rockies have a chance to wrap up a series sweep. Rockies fall flat on their face in grand fashion. Happens every time.

Sunday may have taken the cake though. What a flat out miserable day in so many different ways. Most of which revovlve around usually dependable pitchers having their worst outings of the season. But there was so much more. So. Much. More.

Royals 16, Rockies 8 (boxscore)

Jason Hammel: I wonder if his back is still bothering him. He really hasn't looked like the same guy since leaving that start 2-3 weeks ago when if stiffened up on him. I'm not trying to make excuses for him, but something is amiss. I don't think he just went sour for no reason, but I could be way off on my speculation.

Either way, his outing was lousy. Hopefully he can bounce back in Washington.

Matt Belisle: This one came out of nowhere. Belisle allowed ONE run the entire month June. I even ranked him as the Rockies No. 1 player in June.He's not likely to repeat in July, but we must not overreact to one awful outing. As long as nothing is physically wrong, he's going to continue being a critical and effective part of the bullpen.

Carlos Gonzalez: Stop. Hitting. Walls. How many times must we go over this? Hit fastballs. Hit curveballs. Don't hit walls. Walls, bad

Thankfully he only suffered a right wrist contusion in that ugly, high speed, head-on collision. It also looked like he hit the absolute worst part of the wall, where there's crease, less padding and a steel beam. Yikes. And could you imagine if they ever moved the walls in at Coors? He wouldn't last a week.

Oh, by the way, he was having a career day at the plate before the injury. He'd already tied a career high with six RBIs. With the humidor clearly closed down early for the holiday, who knows what that number could have risen too.

Mark Ellis: The honeymoon continues. Now comes the real test: road games!

Jim Tracy: He picked a really interesting time to drag out a completely pointless argument. Right in the middle of Colorado's five-run inning, he decides to make a big deal about umpire Jim Reynolds writing a name incorrectly? Are you serious, bro?

The argument ended up going on, and on, and on. Was it really worth the 10-12 minute delay it caused? When it finally ended, the Rockies rally died peacefully. Kansas City would then score six more in the sixth.

Did he kill the momentum? Is momentum something that can be killed? Does it matter? Feel free to debate that amongst yourselves. It just seemed like a waste of time more than anything. We know you know the rules Jim. Now try managing a bullpen.

Now would be a great time for the Jim Tracy Drinking Game


Depressing stat: The Rockies have now lost 11 straight Sunday games. 11. 1, and then another 1. Hard to finish sweeps when you're that miserable on what is often the conclusion of a weekend series.

Overall: The Rockies win a series, which is tough to complain about. But honestly, this had to be a sweep. They had to finish this and get back to .500 ahead of this difficult road trip (aren't they all). Now it's gut check time. They may be without CarGo a few days, but they need to find a way to get to stay above water.

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