This is an interesting match-up to me. As our season's gotten off to a disastrous start, you've probably noticed the increased commentary that the Rockies should have spent money in the off-season on a higher quality pitcher than Wells/Towers/Redman. Lohse -him of the 66-75 career record  and 4.79 ERA- and Carlos Silva were thought by many baseball observers to be the best widely available domestic option out of a severely flawed lot.  Apparently that wasn't the case, as teams shied away from him and agent Scott Boras. Lohse didn't sign his one year, $4.25 million contract with the Cardinals until March 13, just two weeks before the Rockies decided to not eat the contracts of either Wells or Redman -who combined make just $150,000 less than Lohse this season- instead trading reliever Ramon Ramirez to the Royals for what turned out to be de la Rosa.

Now, I'm fine with signing players like Redman and Wells, I said as much in the offseason, and I'll say it again next winter that pitching depth never hurts and is usually needed, but there's a catch. I'm only okay with it if the team is willing and able to bail out quickly and decisively when necessary. It's clear now that Wells' contract is for far too much money to make this possible at all with him. Apparently Redman's contract is a bit easier to swallow, so we're starting a revolving AAA door in his place. Of course, the team wasn't really expecting Redman to be starting at this point heading into camp. Instead that distinction goes to the better paid and injured Wells, who flamed out with the Cards last season, and who the Rockies probably could have waited for a better deal with and in fairness, his pitching with the Rox thus far has been very solid and it's only the injury that hurts. Lohse, meanwhile, despite not signing until March 13, has gone 3-1 with the Cards thus far this season.

You know what would be great this afternoon? If somehow the table got reversed a bit. If all of the sudden that it was Cardinals fans who wished they had a guy like Ramirez to trade away in March for a stud young pitcher who just needed a change of scenery and that they hadn't waited to the last minute to fill out their rotation. Anyway, Lohse has four career starts against the Rockies, including one against Wells in our official opening game on April Fool's Day, and in not one of those starts has he given up more than three runs. Let's change that this afternoon.

Go Rockies!

Colorado Springs: W 10-1

Apparently all Ian Stewart needed to get out of his slump was to get out of the state of Tennessee. After going 1 for 30 in the Volunteer State against Nashville and Memphis, Stewart's now 4 for 8 with three HR's since returning to the Springs, including two three run shots yesterday. Check this out, Stewart is almost exactly one tenth  the man he normally is, an average of .033 compared  to .330 everywhere else, when he visits the lands we call Opry and Grace.

Meanwhile, Greg Reynolds couldn't get out of the third inning for the second straight start, but for the second straight start it was due to events entirely out of his control. After his previous start had him pitching only two and two-thirds innings in Memphis before a game got suspended by rain, yesterday he got pulled after two innings showing his usual efficiency -just 23 pitches thrown- in order to make his MLB debut on Sunday. Congratulation Greg! We certainly wish you're up for good.

Tulsa: Postponed

Modesto: L 10-6

Bakersfield scored in six of the first seven innings against Simon Ferrer and Tommy Baumgardner in an unpleasant mid-day contest for the home team. Michael McKenry homered and had two hits, but had more trouble than usual controlling the running game, allowing three out of four stolen base attempts to be successful off him. Michael Paulk, Cole Garner and Jay Cox each also had a pair of hits. Cox is sporting his new number, Garner's sporting a new 'do . As long as they both keep hitting like that, they can run around naked for all I care. Of course, the Nuts front office and the Rockies developmental staff might draw the line there.

Asheville: W 9-3

Since most of the minor leagues, including the SAL, award playoff spots to both the first and second half champions, this series with first place Charleston could prove pivotal to the second place Tourists playoff aspirations. Things got off to a good start with the win yesterday, as Asheville climbed to just a half game back. Connor Graham didn't have quite the dominant start he had his last time out, but was still effective through five and two thirds, striking out six and allowing just three runs.

He actually was just about as dominant until that sixth inning which saw him give up one of his four hits and two of his three walks before leaving with the bases loaded and two outs. Craig Rodriguez came on and gave up a two run double to raise Graham's ERA a bit. A third potential run was caught at the plate by a good relay between center fielder Michael Mitchell, Everth Cabrera and Lars Davis for the third out. Rodriguez and Craig Baker clamped down from there, however, and the Tourists offense poured on. Brian Rike, Kevin Clark and Jeff Cunningham each had three hits and everybody else save Cabrera (who walked once) had at least one in the romp.

I'll write the Pebble Report and the promised (and late) positives at each level report later, but I wanted to get the conversation going with this first.

First of all, a win is a win is a win, if I might mangle Gertrude Stein a bit, but one run squeakers like last night's aren't a very good indication that the team has turned a corner just yet. Unless a team's as lucky as the D-backs circa 2007, and we all know the Rockies in 2008 aren't anywhere close to that fortunate, seasons aren't won or lost by the close contests. Instead, a team's mettle will be measured in how many times it clobbers the opponent, compared to how many times the clobbering is inflicted upon it. Last season the Rockies split their one run contests, 19-19, while going 29-18 in games decided by five runs or more. This year, they're more or less even again in one run games, 7-6 after last night, but are just 5-9 in the blowouts. If the team is any good, it will become evident when they turn that second figure to a plus.

In order to do that, the Rox will need more innings like last night's eighth -to make a blowout you typically need at least two big innings in a game- and more pitching performances like those Aaron Cook's been giving us. This is all self evident, but stick with me and hopefully I'll get somewhere with this.

So let's go back to the set-up of last night's eighth. The top of the lineup -Willy T, Q, and Holliday- were set to face rookie Kyle McClellan. Taveras hasn't been hitting well this year, Quintanilla's been ripping since his call-up, and Holliday just rips, so the outcome of the first three was sort of predictable. Taveras struck out against the rookie, Quintanilla shot a groundball through the defense up the middle, and Holliday lined a triple deep the other way against a slightly shifted outfield. The only problem with this picture is that we had a guy who's getting out more than two thirds of the time -but he saved a run or two defensively last night- leading off. That first batter, first out scenario always drastically reduces a team's scoring chances.

Anyway, let's go on: next up, Helton. At this point to minimize the damage, La Russa used a common strategy against the Rockies, switching in your best LHP for the Helton/Atkins/Hawpe trio. With one out already, all Randy Flores needed to do was retire the two lefties to end the inning, he could pitch around Atkins. Helton popped out weakly, Atkins walked, and then Hurdle went to this best bat off the bench, Ryan Spilborghs, with two outs to try and get Holliday home. Now LaRussa had an issue, he could stick with Flores, who's allowing a .417 OBP to right handers this year, and has given up a .310/.387/.475 line against them in his career, or he could go to Jason Isringhausen, who had been warming up for the ninth. This was the first time Isringhausen had entered in the eighth inning this season, and this is where I've got to give Hurdle some credit for making TLR squirm. Batting Spilly was absolutely the right decision, and we can probably be thankful that Spilborghs in his career had been a perfect one for one with an RBI single against Flores for making it happen. If it had been Baker or Torrealba with the lone hit off Randy, Hurdle might have been tempted to use one of them instead.

At any rate, Spilly singles in Holliday, and Iannetta triples in both Spilborghs and Atkins to give us that lead. It would make sense that the five players responsible for that rally -Quintanilla, Holliday, Atkins, Spilborghs and Iannetta are five of our best performers this year. All we were lacking was a cameo by Scott Podsednik. So there's the secret to having big innings: GIVE YOUR BEST HITTERS THE MOST CHANCES.

Huh, I thought it might be harder than that.

On to pitching. Also important in manufacturing blowouts is giving up fewer than four runs a game, and so far we've only had one starter capable of this. The big news yesterday was that Greg Reynolds got pulled from his start in Colorado Springs in order to be ready to go Sunday in his MLB debut. Let's make a list of starters this season:

1. Jeff Francis
   
2. Kip Wells
   
3. Aaron Cook
4. Ubaldo Jimenez
5. Mark Redman
   
6. Franklin Morales
7. Jorge De La Rosa
8. as of Sunday, Greg Reynolds

Jason Hirsh will make it nine when he returns. If we trade or troll the waiver wires for someone like Josh Fogg, we'll reach double digits. Believe it or not with all the turnover that occurred at the end of the season, the Rockies didn't use their eighth starter in 2007 until Jimenez pitched on July 19. In that 2008 group, we've got three, soon to be four pitchers in the young, inconsistent phase of their careers, two in the old, ineffective and washed up phase, and what should be our two standbys in Cook and Francis. Francis is a veteran now, a leader, and he should be more consistent than this. Without a real step forward on what he's been doing this season, the Rockies are in trouble. You can blame the rest all you want, but the fact is we need and expect more from Jeff to be competitive. The others are actually meant to be cheap and interchangeable to the point we could stick with the hot hand, should one emerge. It's come to the point that I'm hoping that Reynolds will be that calm and stable, innings eating performer to buffet the ups and downs of the rest of the rotation and it shouldn't be that way.

Anyway, at least I know that Reynolds has the talent to be that guy, but it's a heck of a lot to ask for a rookie. Jeff, step up so the pressure's off him, okay?

Since the series against the Astros in April, the Rockies have gone 0-4-1 in their last five. The team's already ensured that another series win isn't possible until the weekend, but with wins tonight and tomorrow, at least we can avoid another L.

In our losing, it's easy to see all the issues that will make it very difficult for this team to come back into contention in 2008 -such as how we're going to hide the evidence in regards to the disposal of Mark Redman - but it's also easy to lose sight of the promising developments that should help us make another improbable rebound this season, or at the very least compete in 2009, if it comes to that.

Let's start with Chris Iannetta. After last night, Chris -despite starting half the games of those ahead of him- is already the sixth best catcher in the majors in offensive value added according to Baseball Prospectus' VORP stat, and the rate at which he's providing that value is sixth best overall in the NL among players with over 50 AB's. Now, the guy just ahead of him in that latter category is the similarly small sampled Ronny Cedeno, so maybe it would be wise if we held off all of our glee until CDI has doubled his plate appearances, but it's starting to look like last season was the fluke in Chris' career, not the norm.

While we're talking about the rate at which offensive value is added, for the Rockies the top five (20 PA minimum, so Q and Herrera don't qualify yet) look like this:

1. Chris Iannetta .688
2. Scott Podsednik .535
3. Ryan Spilborghs .393
   
4. Matt Holliday .347
5. Clint Barmes .316

Seriously, what does it say when four of our top five offensive performers are -or at least were at the start of the season- bench players? Meanwhile -in keeping with the backwards theme- five of our six most valuable pitchers have come from the bullpen. But I was going to keep this post forward looking, so the good news is that Francis and Jimenez are improving and while Francis has already turned to a plus, Jimenez should swing that way by his next start if he keeps taking steps forward. The linked Tracy Ringolsby article says that Jason Hirsh is throwing bullpen sessions and the hope is he'll be activated by early June. Greg Reynolds is progressing and should be ready for a call-up soon as well.

All we need is to put the bench guys in, rack up some runs and win a few 12 to 10 De La Rosa and Redman starts in May, and we'll be all set. Simple.

I'm going to post some of the positive highlights of the first month of the season from each affiliate later this evening, but in the meantime, here are the recaps from last night. My new Farm Report at the Rocky talks about the oddity of Casey Weathers' groundball tendencies thus far.

Colorado Springs: L 10-5

For the first four innings, it looked like things were finally turning around for ol' Vic Zambrano. Yep. He was cruising along with a shutout, just three walks and three hits allowed, things were finally going his way. He'd be in Denver in no time, especially considering what Mark Redman was doing just up the road. Of course, reality had to hit sometime, in Zambrano's case it was with the nine runs he gave up in the fifth and sixth. The Sky Sox scored five in the last two innings to halve the margin, starting with an Ian Stewart solo shot, but the comeback was too little, too late.

Tulsa: L 5-4

Tough luck for Brandon Hynick in this one, Brandon pitched into the seventh and allowed just a pair of runs on seven hits and six strikeouts. As David Ohno mentioned in yesterday's comments, in his last four starts Hynick has gone at least six innings each time and he has a 19/1 K/BB margin. The two runs both were solo homeruns, which is a little troubling, but overall it looks like Hynick's adjusted to AA. Corey Wimberly had a pair of hits, and he and Dexter Fowler each stole two more bases, but the Drillers offense is otherwise still slumping.

Modesto: L 8-5

Aneury Rodriguez apparently took off for the week and left his less effective twin as a replacement. This Rodriguez couldn't get through the third inning and gave up five runs on six hits, two walks and a wild pitch. Cole Garner and Geoff Strickland hit well for the Nuts, but otherwise the offense was still flat. Speaking of, Jay Cox is hoping a different uniform brings him better luck.

Asheville: W 11-7

A solid start by Cory Riordan and a nine run sixth inning fueled the Tourists win last night. David Christensen had his second straight three for four game -including two two run hits in that big inning. He told Jason McGill that he's changed his stance over the past week. We can all hope that the solution to his hitting woes is that simple, because the kid has a ton of talent.

Go Rockies!?

Dave Krieger explains why we saw Yorvit Torrealba pinch hit for Scott Podsednik:

Sometimes, National League managers seem to love the double switch so much it becomes an end in itself. With Taveras having run for Iannetta earlier in the inning - a center fielder for a catcher - it was just so symmetrical to hit Torrealba for Podsednik - a catcher for a center fielder - even though Podsednik was hitting 70 points higher than Torrealba.

So much for a symmetrical move working out. A little asymmetry is not going to kill anyone.

The Rockies signed Todd Ritchie to a minor league contract and sent him to extended spring training. He last pitched in the majors during the 2004 season for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. It doesn't hurt to see what Ritchie can do, but really? Ritchie's had one good season and that was in the last century. He was a 15-game winner for the Pirates in 1999 with 3.49 ERA that season, his career low. Nice to see a guy attempt a comeback, but at 36 (37 in November) what can we expect out of him? Yes, I already know the responses to that question.

There's also a bit in the last link on Kip Wells, his surgery, and the surgery his daughter recently had.

If Todd Ritchie isn't the solution to the Rockies' pitching woes, maybe the Dragonslayer is? Or Julian Tavarez? Or Rich Harden? Or Joe Blanton? Or Kevin Millwood? The first two names are the most likely candidates to don Rockies uniforms as the club waits for Morales to show improvement, for Reynolds to be ready in a month, and for Hirsh to return from his injury. As O'Dowd says, he's looking for a guy to make a few starts between now and sometime in June. Morales makes his first Triple-A start Sunday in the meantime.

Colorado Springs, W 7-6 - Cory Sullivan doubled in two runs in the second inning, and Ian Stewart promptly doubled in Sullivan. Sean Barker collected three hits and drove in a run. Juan Castro made his debut for the Sky Sox, had two hits, and drove in a run. Joe Koshansky (who struck out three times) and Rick Guarno had the other RBI. Jayson Nix had a double, and Stewart, Barker, and Colonel each stole a base.

Josh Towers went 5 2/3 innings, allowed four runs on ten hits and a walk. He also struck out four. Matt Daley and Steven Register held Memphis hitless over the last two innings. Register picked up his third save.

Tulsa, L 2-3 - Chris Nelson went 3-for-4 with a home run, his second. He stole his third base of the season as well (Fowler stole his eighth). Daniel Carte drove in the other run. Jeff Kindel had a triple in the sixth and scored on Carte's single.

Alan Johnson went 7 1/3 innings and allowed all three runs.

Modesto - The Cal League had an off day.

Asheville, W 5-4 - David Christensen singled in Brian Lapin twice as part of his 3-for-4 night. He also stole his fifth base. But it was Brian Rike who had the best hit of the night, his seventh homer in the bottom of the ninth to win the game. He also had an assist and an error.

Jhoulys Chacin allowed four runs in seven innings. He walked three and struck out six. Randall Taylor picked up the win. This was the team's first win when trailing after seven innings.

4-4 as we go into the 8th inning.