MVN - Most Valuable Network

Rox Win Wild One To Salvage Series; Tulo Turns Rare Triple Play

I had tickets to go to this afternoon’s Rockies game, but I couldn’t because of a work conflict.

Good thing I didn’t miss much. Just an unassisted triple play, a furious ninth-inning rally, a walk-off home run, and the most exciting Rockies victory of the season, a 9-7 triumph over the Atlanta Braves.

Typically, Matt Holliday’s two-run walk-off shot off Steve Colyer in the 11th inning would be the story of the day. But walk-off homers happen fairly frequently. What Troy Tulowitzki did in the seventh inning today, however, had happened just 12 times before in the history of baseball.

In a 5-5 tie in the seventh inning, Kelly Johnson and Edgar Renteria reached base off of Zach McClellan to start things off. On a 3-2 pitch, the runners broke as Chipper Jones hit a wicked liner right at Tulo at short. The rookie caught the line drive, stepped on second to retire Johnson, and tagged Renteria for the 13th unassisted triple play in baseball history.

(An aside: Tulo sure didn’t drop the ball, but according to my dad and my brother (both of whom were at 20th and Blake today) the Coors Field scoreboard operators sure did. There was no mention of Tulo’s historic feat, and the replay was never shown.)

The Rox stood to lose the game in the ninth, trailing 7-5 after the Braves had pushed across a run apiece in their final two frames. But without hitting the ball out of the infield, the purple pinstripes managed to tie the game on three walks, an infield hit, and a ground out. Clint Barmes damn near won it when he lined a ball to right field off Tyler Yates with the winning run on third, but Jeff Francoeur made a diving catch to send the game to extras. (It’s probably a good thing – if Barmes got the game-winning hit and an unassisted triple play were turned in the same game, the universe might collapse on itself.)

In the 11th, with a man on first, Matt Holliday finally got the big hit we’ve been waiting for from him all season long. And what a big hit it was. There was no doubt as soon as it left the bat that Holliday had just ended the ballgame.

The Rox may have lost this series – their annoying habit of losing the first two games before salvaging one needs to stop, and soon – but there are signs that the offense is starting to come around. They’ve now hit five homers and scored 29 runs in their last four games. Both Holliday and Todd Helton are hitting over .390, and three other key members of the lineup are starting to produce.

Hopefully we saw the beginning of a hot streak for Brad Hawpe today, as he crushed a ball into the second deck in left for his first homer of the 2006 season. Brad went 2-for-4 today to raise his average up to .256. His on base percentage is a perfectly acceptable .366, but the .376 slugging percentage is what’s worrisome. Hawpe’s got too much power to slug that low for this long, and getting the first jack of the year might prove to be a monkey off his back that unleashes more power.

Let the record show that I wasn’t among the many who gave up on Willy Taveras after a rough start to the season for the new center fielder. An adjustment in his stance has Willy looking far more confident at the plate, and as a result he’s raised his average to .268. More impressive is his OBP of .350, which is right about where you want your leadoff man to be in that category. He’s only 6 for 10 on stolen bases thus far, but the more he gets on base, the more he’ll be free to run, and I expect that percentage to rise.

Finally, there’s Tulowitzki, who is taking to the two-hole in the Colorado lineup like a duck to water. I was critical of the three days off in a row that Clint Hurdle gave him, but since then he’s looked like a different hitter. He’s less likely to chase bad pitches and much more likely to drive the ball than he was in the first three weeks. He’s made some loud outs, and his hits have been louder; with two homers and a triple in the Atlanta series, Tulo drove in six of Colorado’s 18 runs. He’s still only hitting .205, but the power is starting to come and he’s visibly more confident. Even though the bat hasn’t come yet, the glove sure has – he made two highlight reel plays today that weren’t unassisted triple plays and has established himself as the team’s top glove man. He should be required to carry a license for that right arm of his.

At 10-15, the Rockies are in last place in the NL West, and not by a little bit. But they’ve got a chance to pull themselves back up with three games in San Francisco this week. If the bats continue to come alive, the Rox can shake free from this 25-game funk. There’s still a lot of baseball left, and the younger members of this club are getting better every day.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 29th, 2007 at 10:24 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.