Sunday, August 7, 2011

Sunday Recrap: Chapter 16

The Colorado Rockies have now gone one entire NFL regular season of Sunday's without a victory. The only other people who know what this feels like is the Detroit Lions. That's bad, because anytime you're compared to the Detroit Lions in terms of futility, you've arguably reached the lowest point in your franchise's history.

This probably isn't really the lowest point in franchise history, but with everything that's happened this season, it's pretty close. Granted, a decent amount of the bad has unfortunately been out of the Rockies control. That stuff you can live with. But a larger amount has been within the Rockies control, and the bottom line is they just haven't been good enough at baseball.

Such was the case again on this Sunday.

Nationals 3, Rockies 2 (boxscore)

This is when you know things are bad. The Rockies went 2-for-11 with RISP. That was actually better than Washington's 1-for-11 with RISP, and you still lose.

As has been the case so often, especially on Sunday, one more clutch hit likely gets the job done.

Nine hits, all singles. That's also problematic.

I also found this interesting via Andrew Fisher on Twitter:

@PoseidonsFist Troy Tulowitzki is 0-for-4 (1 K, 2 popouts, one flyout) when representing the tying run in the bottom of the ninth inning...this week alone

No one will deny Tulowitzki is the premier shortstop in baseball and the Rockies best player. Still, he needs to do more in these big spots. It's not good when the home fans are predicting their best player to fail in key situations, and nailing their predictions every time. It's one of those times where you really do have to look beyond the raw numbers to gauge the true impact he's having on the on field product. Right now it's positive, but not positive enough.

Three positives

1. Aaron Cook: Surprisingly, Aaron Cook was good enough. Then again, maybe it's not surprising. Cook has been pretty good in the past at getting off the deck when everyone writes him off. Now, as Travis Lay of Blake Street Bulletin writes, the Rockies may be forced to buy into Cook's resurgence should it continue.

Baseball is just baseball like that.

2. Josh Roenicke: Nice Rockies debut for Roenicke. A scoreless ninth with one strikeout and one hit allowed. Maybe we should make him the closer!

3. Eliezer Alfonzo: Alfonzo had 33% of Colorado's hits on Sunday. He's really striking the ball nicely in his recent starts. And hey, along with Chris Iannetta, the Rockies catcher spot has actually been pretty productive. Just thought I'd mention that.

Final thought(s)

A 2-5 homestand. That kinda blows, doesn't it?

Now we're off to Cincinnati and St. Louis for seven. I'm predicting they'll go 4-3. Why? Just because.

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