Thursday, March 8, 2012

Spring Training Hits & Misses: Game 5 vs. Kansas City

Hits

Drew Pomeranz

Make that back-to-back strong outings to start the spring for Pomeranz. In today's outing he threw three scoreless innings, allowing two hits, walking one, and striking out three. To break it down a little further, he forced three groundball outs, picked the speedy Lorenzo Cain off first, and teamed up with Ramon Hernandez to have another speedy runner, Mitch Maier, thrown out attempting to steal second.

Good stuff all the way around for Pomeranz individually, but that about covers the good for Colorado today.

Misses

Josh Outman

Outman's day was a miss, no doubt, but not the total miss it looked like it would be after his first inning. That first inning, which was the game's fourth inning, included the Royals plating four runs on five hits, with Yuniesky Betancourt's home run greeting him on just his second pitch. His second inning didn't start much better with a walk and single leading it off, but Outman did bear down at that point to retire six in a row.

Again, not a good outing, but you definitely take note of his ability to collect himself and finish his three innings of work strongly. How a pitcher finishes his outing after a rough start is one of the few things you can actually take away from these spring games, so I wouldn't say Outman harmed his chances of making the team based on this. But he definitely needs to bounce back with a more complete performance his next time out.

Hector Gomez

On the positive side, Gomez ripped a double in the ninth. On the negative, he injured himself rounding first base and had to be removed from the game. I don't know if it's bad luck, brittle bones, soft tendons, or a combination of all three, but the kid (quickly becoming an older kid) can't stay healthy long enough for the Rockies to evaluate him. At some point the Rockies are likely to pull the plug on Gomez and let someone else try to figure him out.

Got Their Work In

Matt Belisle

Another clean inning for Matty B. I only point that out because it was a pretty uneventful afternoon for the Rockies overall.

Ramon Hernandez

Hernandez singled in the second off former Rockie Felipe Paulino - who not surprising pitched well today - and then came back later with that caught stealing of Mitch Maier. That makes him one of the better Rockies on the afternoon.

Nolan Arenado

A double and another fine defensive play to rob a hit in the ninth. At this point you should just assume he's doing something impressive on the field unless you otherwise. And you're not likely to hear otherwise.

Oh, yeah, and the score in case you're wondering

The Royals shut out the Rockies 5-0. Like I said several times, not a whole lot to take away from the game on the Rockies side. Hopefully tomorrow's game has a little more action.

What's next

It's the Rockies vs. the Oakland A's on Friday at 1:10 MT. Audio again will be available on MLB.com, so we've been pretty lucky so far that we've been able to hear every spring game.

More Rockies thoughts await you if you follow me on Twitter: @Townie813

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