MVN - Most Valuable Network

Second half mojo: Rockies starting off well after All-Star Break

The All-Star Break is always a great time to assess your team’s current situation.  A few teams have already written their seasons off (here’s looking at you, Seattle and Washington) while others are gearing up for a serious stretch run.  However, the fast majority of the teams are stuck in limbo, not knowing just quite yet if they should pack it in and move into sellers mode at the trading deadline or if they should hope for a stretch of hot baseball to vault them toward the postseason.  At 42-57, the Rockies should be in the former group, yet thanks to the ineptitude of the National League West, they still find themselves with hope.

This opening seven game homestand is a crucial one toward deciding whether this team is truly ready to make a 2007-esque mad dash toward October, and so far the Rockies have put forth a top notch effort, taking the first three games of the four game set against the Pirates.  Sure, the games were at home, where the Rox undoubtedly play their best baseball, but even seemingly easy wins have been hard to come by this year for the boys in purple.  So it makes it even more incredible that Colorado has pulled this off without the assistance of their top gun, Aaron Cook.  He’ll toe the slab tomorrow as the Rockies gun for the four game sweep.

The break didn’t stop the Rockies from making some personnel moves, adding Juan Morillo and Ian Stewart while dropping Mark Redman and Jayson Nix.  Good to see Stewart back up with the big club, as I think he has the potential to keep making strides of improvement while contributing to this club’s (long-shot) playoff push.  Morillo is certainly a wild card, always known for his huge fastball and (surprise, surprise) shaky control.  It remains to be seen what his role on the team will be.

Time to see if Cookie will have any hangover effects from his superb pitching in the extra innings of the All-Star Game.  If he’s anywhere near on top of his game tomorrow, a four game sweep will be just what the doctor ordered.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 19th, 2008 at 8:31 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.