MVN - Most Valuable Network

Redman demoted to bullpen; Reynolds to start on Sunday

It took five and a half weeks, but the Rockies on Wednesday finally came to the conclusion that the other 29 MLB teams have and decided that Mark Redman is no longer a MLB-quality starter.

It was in the cards already on Tuesday night, after Redman left the game in the third inning of a 6-5 loss to the Cardinals, and you could sort of see in his face in the photo on the Rockies’ official website that Redman knew he probably had just made his last start in the major leagues. It’s kind of sad when you see a guy who’s had a decent career when he realizes that he just doesn’t have it any more, but that’s Redman. He was an above-average starter from 2000-03 with the Twins, then with the Tigers and the Marlins, but after he posted a 11.63 ERA in six appearances (five starts) for the Braves last year, you had to think he was done. Then he got a second chance with the Rockies late last season and pitched well, helping the Rockies get to the playoffs after injuries claimed Aaron Cook, Rodrigo Lopez, and Jason Hirsh.

Sticking him in the rotation to start the season was in part a reaction to another injury to Hirsh, and partly out of goodwill for what he did for the Rockies in 2007, but he wasn’t very good and it showed. Game scores of 34, 46, 52, and 44 in his first four starts — two of which the Rockies won — suggested that, while he wasn’t great, he would at least be acceptable while Hirsh recovered from his injury. Game scores of 14 and 21 in his last two starts, though, meant that the Rockies no longer could keep sending him out there.

Taking his place in the rotation, at least for now, will be Greg Reynolds, according to the Rocky Mountain News.  And I’m not sure Reynolds is ready.

You’ll recall that Reynolds was the Rockies’ number one draft pick — and the second overall pick — in 2006.  At the time, I didn’t like the pick, not because I didn’t think Reynolds was a good pitcher but more because I didn’t think he was the kind of pitcher you draft with the second overall pick.  Reynolds profiled more as a solid, middle-of-the-rotation guy, not an ace.  In some sense, this was what the Rockies needed, since the farm system already had several high-risk, high-upside guys like Ubaldo Jimenez, Franklin Morales, and Juan Morillo in the system.  Pitchers like that are good to have, even though there’s a pretty good risk that they get hurt or never find their command and flame out in AAA, if only because the possibility that they’ll become a true top-of-the-rotation starter outweighs whatever risk they have.  Polished college pitchers like Reynolds serve a different purpose: you get them because there’s a good chance they’ll contribute to the major league team, even if it’s only as a back-of-the-rotation guy or middle reliever.

The problem, though, is that polished college pitchers aren’t as difficult to find as flamethrowers who really have the kind of potential to become a true number one starter.  In the 2006 draft, the Rockies also got Brandon Hynick, another college pitcher (currently at AA) who could/should become a solid, middle-of-the-rotation starting pitcher — in the eighth round.

In any case, much like I was with Franklin Morales when he was called up last season (again because of injury issues), I’m not sure that Reynolds is ready, and the results could be as ugly as having Redman in the starting rotation.  Through yesterday, Reynolds has pitched a grand total of 132.2 innings as a professional.  While that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it does mean that he’s fairly inexperienced, and Reynolds has never appeared to be the kind of pitcher who will make an easy transition from the minors to the big leagues.  He pitched very well for Tulsa early last season before getting hurt, and he wasn’t doing poorly for Colorado Springs this season.  Ignore the 4.86 ERA; the PCL is very much a hitters’ league, and Security Service Field in Colorado Springs very much a hitters’ park (like Coors Field, pre-humidor.)  When pitching at one of the few pitcher-friendly venues in the PCL (Tacoma), Reynolds was just fine.  His groundball percentage is ridiculous.

Still, pitchers who rely on pitching to contact — and that definitely describes Reynolds, who only has 16 strikeouts in 33.1 innings this season — tend to take more time to adjust to the big leagues, and that makes me think that he will struggle in his first callup to the bigs.  It’s not the same as Redman, a pitcher who clearly was done, but throwing Reynolds out there every five days could have similar results for now.  Once he gets his feet wet in the majors, he should be fine, but I’m cautioning not to expect him to be a world-beater overnight.  Of course, the good news is that his Sunday start will be in San Diego, and I can’t think of a better place for a guy who pitches to contact to make his MLB debut.

As for today… well, let’s hope for a series split with the Cardinals.  Jorge de la Rosa is pitching, so that seems like a tall order… but, hey, stranger things have happened.  Go Rockies!

Pujols shows Rockies how it’s done

Let me start off by saying that tonight’s game blew up my grandiose plan.  I was going to compare the play of the Cardinals and the Rockies in the first two games (and one play in particular) of this series as a microcosm of their seasons thus far, but now that the Rox so rudely went and made a daring eighth inning comeback tonight, the idea  just backfired in my face.  But you know what?  I’m going to roll with it anyway…it may be a bit late, but hear me out.

I don’t know if there’s one play that could more aptly summarize both the Rockies’ season and the Cardinals’ season than the one that occured on Monday night with one out in the top of the ninth inning.   Albert Pujols, who was standing on second after a double, breaks for third base as Brian Fuentes delivers to Rick Ankiel in a 5-5 tie game.  Ankiel hits a little dribbler toward second base, upon which Jonathan Herrera pounces and fires the ball to first for the second out.  Seems pretty standard, right?  Well, Mr. Pujols decided not to cooperate and kept on chugging right around third base and scored the winning run as Herrera threw to first, with Jonathan not even considering the thought that Albert might just keep on trucking.

But then again, after the way that things have gone for these two teams thus far this season, how can you be surprised?  The Cardinals are playing an awful lot like the Rockies did toward the end of the 2007 season.  They are getting stingy pitching, timely hitting from both the usual and unusual suspects, and decent relief pitching.  Not surprisingly, that’s left them with a stellar record and first place in the National League Central division.  The Cards are playing with the swagger and attitude of a contending team; of course, whether they actually are or not remains to be seen but don’t try to argue that point with them.  They believe they are for real, and when guys like Pujols and Ankiel (I hope you saw his outfield assists on Tuesday night…unbelievable) keep making tremendous plays, don’t expect the winning to stop anytime soon.

And now, for the ugly side of the coin.  When watching this 2008 Rockies squad, I’m sure most fans are being reminded of pre-2007 Rockies teams that seemed to play well enough to win yet constantly found ways to lose.  The Pujols play was just another example of something that just never would have happened to the Rox last season when the team was on a roll.  But when you’re losing and just can’t seem to string together a full game, those are the type of plays that jump up and bite you and ultimately cost you wins.

But who knows?  Perhaps after Chris Iannetta’s huge hit tonight (amen to Tom’s call for more PT for Iannetta, by the way), maybe this will be a turning point for the Rockies.  With the starting rotation is in shambles, however, I wouldn’t bank on it.  Still, I can’t help but imagine how beautiful this symmetry would be (as noted by Tom in his post yesterday):

May 7th, 2007 - Jeff Francis goes 7 innings, gives up two earned runs in a no decision, and the Rockies escape with a 3-2 win over the Cardinals.  They proceed to win 15 of Francis’ next 18 starts.

May 7th, 2008 - Jeff Francis goes 5 innings, gives up three earned runs in a no decision, and the Rockies escape with a 4-3 win over the Cardinals.  They proceed to win…well, we’ll just have to wait and see.

Chris Iannetta shows why he should be playing more

At this point, there’s no question in my mind who should be starting behind the dish for the Rockies.  Clint Hurdle seems to have gotten the message as well, starting Chris Iannetta each of the last three nights and relegating Yorvit Torrealba to the bench.  Iannetta has responded with five hits in the last two nights, including a homer and a two-run double in last night’s near-comeback in the ninth inning against the Cardinals.

Torrealba may or may not be a better defensive backstop than Iannetta.  But the fact of the matter is, with Tulowitzki out for a while and second base still a black hole, the Rockies need to go for offense, and the Rockies cannot afford to have Iannetta, currently hitting .362 with a whopping 1.107 OPS, riding the bench most of the time.  Further proof, the Rockies are 5-7 when Iannetta is the starter, compared to 7-14 when Torrealba start.  Coincidence?  Maybe, but if Torrealba has any effect on the Rockies’ pitchers it’s not showing in the team’s record.

Of course, the Rockies have lost the first two of a four-game series with the Cardinals at Coors Field.  That’s because, well, the pitching staff is still a problem.  Ubaldo Jimenez was okay Monday night; but with a weakened offense, the Rockies probably need better than just “okay” from the pitching staff.  Mark Redman didn’t even make it through the third inning last night, ballooning his ERA to 7.84 in the process.  And he’s been as awful as his ERA makes it sound.  I’m willing to give Jorge de la Rosa another start or two to see if he can work things out, but as for Redman, it’s about time for the Rockies to cut their losses and give someone else a shot.  The bad news, though, is that nobody in Colorado Springs really looks like they’d be a much better option than Redman; Greg Reynolds and Sean Smith aren’t ready, and Josh Towers is, well, Josh Towers.  Towers, though, was a better-than-league-average pitcher as recently as 2005.  I can’t imagine him doing any worse than Redman has.

In any case, if things are going to turn around this season, it needs to happen soon, and it starts tonight with Jeff Francis taking the hill.  In six starts this season, Francis has exactly two quality starts, and the Rockies are 1-5 when he starts.  Of course, Francis got off to a poor start last year.  It got lost in the late run last year, but Francis was very pedestrian in April 2007 (just like the Rockies now that I think about it), going 1-4 with a 6.19 ERA and just two quality starts in his first six.

It all began to turn around on May 7, when Francis held the Cardinals to two runs over seven innings and got a no decision in a Rockies win.  That began a three-month stretch, encompassing eighteen starts, when Jeff went 12-1 with a 3.39 ERA.  More importantly, the Rockies went 15-3 in those eighteen starts.  If the Rockies are going to turn the season around, they first need Francis to turn his season around, and that needs to start tonight.

And tonight is May 7.  The opponent?  The Cardinals.  Funny how things seem to repeat themselves.

Can the Rockies pull a U-turn on this 2008 season?

Well, that didn’t take long.  One month into the season and it appears that the Rockies have done a fine job of making people forget about the team that won the National League pennant last year.  This team is no longer fighting to prove that they are legitimate contenders; instead, they’re trying to prove that they don’t just flat out suck.  Amazing how a mere 31 games into 2008, this team has flipped what could have been a franchise-defining season into a disaster prevention campaign.

Now, before I start to sound like I’m hitting the panic button (which I’m not), let me just say that 2008 represented the first time in a decade that this team has really had a chance to string together back-to-back impressive seasons and cement itself as a legitimate threat in the National League.  Winning this year would have established Colorado as the clear division rival to Arizona.  Winning this year would have guaranteed a packed Coors Field for years to come.  Winning this year would have kept the Rockies from being mentioned every once in awhile in the same breath as the Pirates, Royals, Nationals, and Orioles.  Instead, this 12-19 start has stamped a “fluke” label right on this team’s collective forehead in the eyes of the baseball public.  As a result, they’re going to be fighting to shed that label the rest of the season and it’s not going to be an easy task.

After Aaron Cook (the only starting pitcher who knows how to do his job) helped salvage a victory in the finale today against the Dodgers, the Rockies will look to start a winning streak with the St. Louis Cardinals coming to town for four games.  As surprisingly bad as the Rockies have been to start the season, the Cardinals have been shockingly good, jumping out to a 19-12 record and first place in the National League Central.  Sounds like a tough matchup for the Rockies, but it wasn’t that long ago that a four game series in Coors Field would have opponents shaking in their boots no matter how good they were.  Therefore, it seems like this would be an excellent time to pound the Redbirds, restore some of that killer home field advantage, and build some momentum heading into a roadtrip to San Diego and (gulp) Arizona.

Of course, if the Rox instead choose to continue to play as poorly as they have all season, that ugly word stamped on their forehead is only going to burn brighter and hotter with each passing loss.

Rockies can’t stop white-hot Dodgers

Jorge de la Rosa couldn’t get the job done.

Well, lately nobody has been able to get the job done for the Rockies, but tonight it was the turn of the new acquisitions — de la Rosa and Jason Grilli — to fail in the key spots as the team continued its misery against the Dodgers, who are now 5-0 against us this season.  We just can’t expect to contend if we can’t beat our division rivals.  De la Rosa spotted the Dodgers four runs in the first inning and two more in the second; oddly enough, though, he outlasted his counterpart on the other side, Esteban Loaiza, who took a 6-0 lead and gave it right back in the second and third.  But Jorge’s auspicious debut as a Rockie was over in the fifth inning, when a three-run homer by James Loney gave the Dodgers a 9-6 lead they wouldn’t relinquish.  Jason Grilli then loaded the bases to start the sixth inning before being pulled for Ryan Speier, who limited the damage a bit but still allowed two inherited runners to score — hey, it’s hard to keep the other team off the scoreboard when you come in with the bases loaded and nobody out.

In any case, while the offense did show up last night (unlike, say, the last time we faced Esteban Loaiza), the poor pitching performances made it tough to come up with enough runs to win.  The sad thing in all of this is that Mark Redman had his turn skipped in the rotation so that we could get essentially the same quality of start a week later from de la Rosa.  Not that Redman is good or anything, but he was held back so that we could see that?  Yeah, okay, so nine runs over four innings isn’t as bad as ten runs in the first inning, but I have to think that Jorge won’t be in the starting rotation for very long.

(And, as if we needed another reason why this was a dumb move… Ramon Ramirez, the player we traded away in late March for a player to be named later that turned out to be Jorge de la Rosa, has a 0.66 ERA and 15 strikeouts in 13.2 innings this season.  I’m just sayin’.)

I said all April that it wasn’t time to press the panic button.  Now, feel free to panic.  The offense doesn’t seem to be as good as last year.  Tulowitzki is now hurt, the triumvirate of Omar Quintanilla, Jon Herrera, and Clint Barmes is a clear downgrade at second, and Yorvit Torrealba continues to start despite hitting .238 and having thrown out only 5 of 23 would-be basestealers on the season.  And the pitching… oh my God.  The starting pitching other than Aaron Cook has been awful, and the bullpen has been even worse.

It’s only May 4, and already the Rockies are ten games back in the West.  Unless things turn around in a hurry, a season that began with so much promise is going to turn into one very long season.

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse…

God, what a week.

After 2007 and Rocktober, I think a lot of us had really high expectations for the Rockies this year.  And with good reason; after all, the only everyday player not returning was Kaz Matsui, and the only starting pitchers gone were Rodrigo Lopez and Josh Fogg, who we assumed would be easily replaced by Ubaldo Jimenez and Franklin Morales.  Jayson Nix, we thought, would at least be a good gloveman who the rest of the offense could carry.

Naturally, the 11-17 April has tempered expectations a bit.  And as I was bearing down on finals, things all went haywire.

First, Jayson Nix was designated for assignment.  No surprise there; when you’re hitting .111, you shouldn’t expect to keep your job for very long.  I suppose that 45 major league at bats is not enough time to make a decision about a player, but with several other hitters struggling, the Rockies couldn’t afford a cipher in the eighth spot of the lineup.

Then came Black Tuesday.  Well, that’s misleading, as the Rockies actually snapped a four-game losing streak on Tuesday.  But the demotion of Nix had left the Rockies with only five infielders (Baker technically being listed as an outfielder.)  Then Baker, scheduled to start at second, hurt his finger and was a late scratch, forcing Tulowitzki into action at short.  Tulo got hurt in the first inning.  Things got strange from there, with Garrett Atkins moving to second (taking over for Clint Barmes, who slid over to short), and Chris Iannetta playing third base.  Yes, Chris Iannetta played third base.  And Garrett Atkins playing second base.  It actually didn’t turn out that badly.

Today came the announcement that Tulo is likely out until the All-Star Break.  It’s not so much that Tulo was contributing a lot to the team; heck, he was hitting .152 at the time (barely better than Nix.)  But we’ll have to get used to seeing a lot of combinations of Omar Quintanilla, Clint Barmes, and Jonathan Herrera up the middle over the next couple of months.  We all know about Barmes: great in April ‘05, pretty bad ever since.  Quintanilla is a decent gloveman who hasn’t hit a lick in the majors.  Jonathan Herrera’s ceiling at the plate is probably Willy Taveras.  There’s the possibility that Ian Stewart could come up to the majors and play second, but so far, it looks like that was just talk in the preseason: Ian’s been playing at third regularly for the Sky Sox, as if the Rockies still think he’s going to take over for Atkins any time soon.  Ian also just went 0-for-the-series against Nashville.

In any case… Brad Hawpe had better start hitting soon.  And Yorvit Torrealba… or Chris Iannetta needs to be playing more than he is now (assuming he continues to hit.)

As for other moves: Franklin Morales was demoted, as he probably would have been in the preseason had Jason Hirsh not been hurt and the other options for the fifth starter spot not been Kip Wells and Josh Towers.  Speaking of Wells, he’s hurt, too, on the DL with a blood clot in his hand.  That doesn’t sound good.  In need of a starter for Saturday, the Rockies completed the transaction with the Royals and took Jorge de la Rosa as the player to be named later for Ramon Ramirez.  Great birthday present, guys, Jorge de la Rosa starting for the Rockies?

And the Rockies got Jason Grilli from the Tigers for essentially peanuts (minor league reliever Zach Simons, but who’s counting?)  Of course, Tigers fans seem to be glad to see Grilli go.  That doesn’t seem too good for us.

In any case… too much information to process at one time.  I need some sleep.

Sky Sox come to town, win 9 to nothing

So the Colorado Springs Sky Sox, AAA affiliate of the Rockies, came to town tonight and after a 30-minute rain delay shut down the hometown Nashville Sounds by the score of 9-0.  It was pretty much over after an Omar Quintanilla walk and a Cory Sullivan single were followed by a three-run homer by Seth Smith.  Then John Koronka shut down the Sounds for seven innings and that was that.  Quintanilla also had a homer later in the game.

Seriously, writing about the Rockies lately has become so depressing that it’s better to just forget about the 4-0 loss to the Giants tonight and focus instead on the Sky Sox, who look like an actual baseball team right now.  Considering the night that Franklin Morales had, compared with what John Koronka was doing, it’s worth wondering whether or not Franklin really should be in AAA right now.  On the season, Morales now has 17 walks against just 9 strikeouts on the year.  That is just awful.

And that nine-run showing by the Sky Sox offense looked a lot better than what the Rockies have done of late.  Helton, Holliday, and Atkins are hitting, but nobody else on the team is.  Jayson Nix, scuffling offensively, was designated for assignment over the weekend; but his replacement, Jeff Baker, isn’t doing much better (.194.)  How about giving Omar Quintanilla, currently hitting .329, a shot?  Can we find a spot for Ian Stewart (six homers)?  Sure, there’s the whole deal of playing in an extreme hitters’ park, but even in Nashville the Sky Sox offense looked fine.

Seriously, watching the two, it’s hard to tell which team is the AAA team and which is the major league club.  That’s never a good sign.  Something needs to change, and it needs to change quickly — before the Diamondbacks run away with the division.