MVN - Most Valuable Network

Bad Jorge shows up, Marlins dominate Rockies

We’ve been through this before.  Jorge De La Rosa has a good side, the one present last Saturday in Cincinnati.  When Good Jorge shows up, good things happen for the Rockies.  The Rockies usually win.

Somewhere along the way on the current road trip, though, Good Jorge got lost in transit and is probably still rolling around at baggage claim.  Or he mistakenly got delivered to Bolivia or something, I don’t really know.  But in any case, Good Jorge was not present last night in south Florida.  Good Jorge is probably helping villagers in Bolivia, which at least is better than being buried under a pile of suitcases in lost luggage.

Bad Jorge did show up, however.  And when Bad Jorge shows up, you can probably guess that losing is nearby.  Bad Jorge didn’t even make it out of the second inning before giving up five hits, walking four (including two with the bases loaded), and hitting a batter, digging the Rockies into a 7-0 hole that they would never climb out of.  The Rockies lost 12-2.  It’s no guarantee, but two runs might have been enough to win with Good Jorge on the hill.

If we had a chance to re-do the trade deadline, I would have sent Bad Jorge to, well, pretty much any team, for pretty much anything in return, just to prevent him from starting for the Rockies.  I know, we can’t trade Bad Jorge without also trading Good Jorge, but it’s good to prevent the headaches for those days when Good Jorge mysteriously vanishes to some remote village in South America and Bad Jorge dooms the Rockies.  You don’t exactly know when Bad Jorge is going to show up; you just know that his occasional appearance is inevitable, and you deal with it in the hopes that you get Good Jorge to forget about the Bolivian villagers for a couple of days and pitch for the team.

On the other hand, hoping for Good Jorge to show up is at least better than the rest of what the Rockies are doing with the rotation.   Back to my previous point about the trade deadline: The Rockies can’t seriously call themselves playoff contenders when two-fifths of their starting rotation consists of Valerio De Los Santos and Glendon Rusch.  I know, Rusch has been decent over the last month, but common sense says that he’s Glendon Rusch and this can’t last.  And De Los Santos?  Monday was his first appearance in the majors since 2005, and his first MLB start since 2000.  I don’t know what the Rockies expect out of him.  And when another fifth of your rotation is occasionally occupied by Bad Jorge, you either aren’t a contender for anything, or you need to add a starting pitcher at the deadline.  Jarrod Washburn isn’t that great, but when the situation is “Jorge De La Rosa Is Our Number Three Starter” (okay, so he’s number four when Francis returns), Washburn is a godsend.

All that’s good and well.  The other news of the day is that I’m taking a week off from blogging.  Internet access will probably be sporadic while my brother and I explore Africa in a Jeep… yeah, I’m lying.  “West Texas in a Honda Civic” is what we’re really doing, and as long as “price” trumps “high-speed Internet access” in our choice of hotels to stay at, I can’t guarantee anything.  Don’t worry, Drew’s still here to keep you guys posted.  I’ll be back on the 8th.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 1st, 2008 at 12:42 am 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.