Rock Solid Recrap: The story is getting old

Make that 12 straight Sunday losses for the Colorado Rockies and 5 straight failures to complete a sweep.

Bad timing? Lack of killer instinct? Lack of talent? All three?

Probably all three.

Nationals 2, Rockies 0 (boxscore)

Five hits for the Colorado Rockies on Sunday. Five singles to be exact. Which means five total bases, and only one runner advanced as far as second base all day. Don't get me wrong, Jordan Zimmerman is one of the great up-and-coming starting pitchers in the National League, but this was a pathetic showing by an underachieving offense.

But it's the same old story, especially on the road. No sense dwelling on it any further or wasting your time with repetitive words.

Three positives

1. Jhoulys Chacin: Whew. He looked healthy, strong and really effective. My biggest concern was the health, because duh, that's where it all starts. And he sure didn't look right the last two starts with that forearm issue. Hopefully that's behind him and he's ready to come out of the gates in the second half dominating and settling for no-decisions instead of stupid undeserved losses.

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Rock Solid Recap: A taste of 2010

That's how good Ubaldo Jimenez was in the Rockies second straight win over the Washington Nationals on Saturday night.

Rockies 2, Nationals 1 (boxscore)

Especially the way it started with U retiring the first 12 Nationals in perfect order. Three of those outs came via the strikeout. Seven came on harmless groundballs. When Ubaldo ran into a little trouble in the 5th, he got another groundball, and a fine double play started by the returning Troy Tulowitzki and turned over beautifully by Mark Ellis.

The only thing that kept Jimenez from challenging for a possible shutout was the boneheaded play in center field by Ryan Spilborghs. Spilly's decision to half dive, half fall down turned an Ian Desmond single into a triple leading off the sixth. The Rockies would trade Desmond's run for an out.

From there, Jimenez finished up strongly.

His line: 8 IP, 5 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 8 K

The one walk certainly stands out as a positive. He had great movement again, but he was doing a better job commanding the zone and avoiding hitter's courts. It should also be noted that Jimenez was touching 97 on the gun as late as the seventh. All those concerned about velocity should feel good about that.

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