Rockies fall to Dodgers in series opener
by Rox Girl on Apr 24, 2009 11:00 PM MDT
in Rockies Game Wraps
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PrintIn a topsy turvy game, the Rockies showed fight, but came up just short to remain winless against the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2009, falling 6 to 5. The Dodgers used a two run, two out rally in the top of the eighth inning to take a 5-3 lead, but a two run homerun by Clint Barmes in the bottom half revived the Rockies. Unfortunately, that resucitation was short lived, as the Dodgers scored one more time in the ninth after James Loney hit a lead off double off of Manny Corpas and came around to score on a two out Brad Ausmus single. Jonathan Broxton came on in the ninth to record the save.
Aaron Cook scrambled out of two bases loaded, zero out situations and pitched six innings for the Rockies, giving up just three runs in the process. Ryan Spilborghs, Todd Helton and Garrett Atkins were all able to come up with hits with runners in scoring position in the early going to help the Rockies keep up with the Dodgers, but both teams failed to capitalize on several opportunities in the early going to break the game open. Cook had some of the same issues with control of his previous two starts, but he finished with a 9-4 groundout to flyout ratio that showed signs that his sinker is turning a corner, particularly after a shaky first inning saw him give up two runs before he even retired a single batter.
Huston Street pitched one and two thirds innings in relief of Cook, allowing a two out double in the eighth inning to Ausmus and an RBI bloop single to Mark Loretta before the wheels started to come off. Jason Grilli came on to put out the fire, but lived up to the gas can nickname, allowing a single to Rafael Furcal, a walk to Orlando Hudson and a wild pitch to score Loretta. Alan Embree finally got the third out for the Rockies by retiring Andre Ethier on a line drive to Brad Hawpe.
The Rockies rallied themselves, with an eighth inning single by Chris Iannetta off of Hong-Chih Kuo being followed up with Clint Barmes' two run blast. The Rockies made things interesting in the ninth inning, with Garrett Atkins reaching on a throwing error by Orlando Hudson. Omar Quintanilla came on to pinch run and was moved over to second with one out when Troy Tulowitzki collected his fourth walk of the game. Broxton then struck out pinch hitter Seth Smith for the second out and Chris Iannetta for the third. The Rockies fall to 5-10 on the season, Los Angeles is 12-5 and six games ahead in the NL West.
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kuo...
got the win
"Chemistry is a class you take in high school or college, where you figure out two plus two is 10, or something."
- Dennis Rodman
It was a great game
But very frustrating for both teams.
by Brendan Scolari on Apr 24, 2009 11:40 PM MDT reply actions
It was an ugly game
Both teams pitched and hit poorly. It was really a game that neither team deserved to win, but someone had to.
The 2009 Colorado Rockies: Expect the Unexpected
Actually
i’d say the dodgers deserved to win, what with their 20 or so baserunners and all.
by Narcoleptico on Apr 25, 2009 7:32 AM MDT up reply actions
I have to say, Rox Girl
for all the talk about how the Dodgers’ luck will straighten out eventually, this doesn’t look like a lucky team to me. This looks like a good team.
As for us? Yeah, not so much…
Still time, but we’re digging ourselves a sizable hole here.
I love Greg Reynolds and I may be slightly ashamed to admit it.
I think you completely misunderstand me.
I’ve never said that the Dodgers aren’t a good team. They are. On offense particularly, they’re the best in the NL if not close to it. That doesn’t preclude them from also being lucky, however, and so far in 2009 that’s been the case. They’ve been both lucky and good. Their luck against the Rockies in particular reminds me of how we did against the Diamondbacks last season, but hopefully it won’t end up quite as horrible as that. Once their luck does straighten out, the Dodgers will still win more than they lose (unless the luck goes the other direction, which would be nice) but just not to the degree that they’ve been beating up on the competition so far.
Ah, okay, perhaps I wasn't clear enough
I didn’t think you said that the Dodgers weren’t good, I just thought that perhaps you were relying over-heavily on the attendant luck swinging back to the mean, and ours perking up — which, all well and good, may not be enough to allow us to catch up on the serious head start we’ve allowed them.
I love Greg Reynolds and I may be slightly ashamed to admit it.
I've just been saying we can't say for sure, yet
Because with both teams on opposite sides of the luck spectrum early, it’s hard to get a feel where things really stand. Unfortunately, I think last night was a more realistic look of what level luck between the two teams would look like, and we still came up fairly short. If that continues to be the case, I think the Dodgers may win in a cakewalk.
You have to remember
When we say the Rockies are getting “unlucky”, we’re not saying that once it levels out, we’re going to suddenly be a .750 club. Or a .600 club. Hell, a .500 club would be great.
A lot of it seems to be WHEN the pokes and quails happen. Like all the lineouts directly to fielders we had, or the great plays Kemp made, etc etc etc. They hit the ball alright last night, with enough loft to carry and enough oomph to split the gap and find the wall, but they always seemed to be right at someone. How do you coach that? They did the hitting part well.
What we’re trying to push with this whole “BABIP” thing is that while this team may not be the best in baseball, we’re not as bad as what we’ve been doing lately.
FREE MATT MURTON
by Andrew Martin on Apr 25, 2009 12:14 PM MDT up reply actions
A Few Comments from the game last night
All right first off had a wonderfull time last night, it was a little cold but I got to bring my 1 month old daughter to her first baseball game(the opening day series was a little cold for her, I thought it would be warmer last night, oops). Lucky girl got to see a MLB game at one month, I had to wait until I was 8 and it was a stupid Yankees vs. Twins game at the ugliest ball park in the majors with the worst sight lines. The Homer Dome.
We sat directly behind home plate as this was a special occasion. My little girl came decked out in all rockies stuff but because of the cold weather had to spend 98% of the game under a blanket and put her warm clothes on so the only thing showing was her Rockies Socks, still we got some great pictures. This experience put a little perspective on what has been a little bit of a disappointing season, how lucky we are to have the opportunity to see Major League Baseball that’s literally 25 minutes from our house.
Couple of other notes:
Orlando Hudson is pulling off of the ball from the left side. They need to throw him hard and to the outside with only show me pitches in, I’m sure the scouts have seen this and this should be going into a gameplan at some point.
This is my first time seeing ManRam in person, he’s a lot bigger then I thought but he is also the goofiest looking guy on the planet(Yes, he’s goofier in person then on TV). Seriously he’s turning a HOF career into a circus sideshow with that look. Plus the guy couldn’t try any less on the field then he does, I know your 36 or 37 but let’s see a little effort.
Where we were sitting the crowd was anti-Houston Street from the moment he took the mound, there is quite a bit of hostility towards him right now as most of the fans at least where we were sitting were titling him as the “guy we got for Holiday.” They also threw in “and the bag of baseballs”. I’m personally hoping that the CarGo and Smith are better then a bag of baseballs, but it was almost as if the crowd was rooting against him. I didn’t care for that and kind of got an idea where the Denver Post article comments are coming from.
So next time you get depressed about how the Rockies are doing just remember it’s a long season and Elizabeth still thinks they are going to win.
Thanks
She was very good at the game, no fussing at all. She handled the noise really well and she seems relaxed there, so she’s got her old man’s love for the ballpark already. I can’t wait to take her back, hopefully it warms up here so we can do that.
There were quite a few young'ns around my section (330) last night.
Glad yours made it and was good.
The little 2/3 year old girl who looked eerily like my fiancee at that age was giggling her head out whenever I’d bellow “COME ON COOKIE, DOUBLE PLAY BALL, HERE WE GO COOKIE” etc and then even harder when I’d subsequently stick my tongue out at her
There was a little boy wandering around his row, clearly been walking for about a month, giving puzzled looks at all the noises around him.
FREE MATT MURTON
by Andrew Martin on Apr 25, 2009 12:20 PM MDT up reply actions
Thanks
That is another reason that baseball is so much fun, interacting with the people around you. Everyone was really nice and helped us get all the pictures we wanted. Besides a Chris Iannetta walk off home run in the ninth we really couldn’t have had a better time.
Bad news, friend
I don’t think Smith is gonna be more more than a bag of baseballs.
Gonzalez, on the other hand, could be a difference maker.
The problem is, even if he does show up and prove to be a decent major leaguer who’s known mostly for his glove but is a solid, if not flashy, bat, by that time Holliday will be with the Yankees/Mets and everybody will just think we got screwed because “OMG HOSTON STRT” and not realizing, despite how many times Ringolsby, Renck, Saunders, whoever, keeps saying that Gonzalez was the centerpiece – NOT Huston Street.
FREE MATT MURTON
by Andrew Martin on Apr 25, 2009 12:17 PM MDT up reply actions
That's supposed to read "much more" I can type.
FREE MATT MURTON
by Andrew Martin on Apr 25, 2009 12:18 PM MDT up reply actions
I'll agree on Smith, although we've barely seen him pitch
I see some pop in Gonzalez though, I have followed the Toronto Blue Jays as well as the Rockies since Roy Halladay is on the team and I have to say just going by body type, swing and demenor, CarGo reminds me of a young Alex Rios. Big Hype, Gangly, it took Rios a couple of seasons to get some traction with the big league club too. The problem is Alex Rios was a lot younger then Gonzalez, I don’t know why I just have a feeling there is a lot of untapped potenial there which that combined with 7 dollars will get you a cup of Starbucks coffee. It just seems he could put it together and if he does it will be quick and it will be very good for the Rockies.
You are 100% correct on the causual fan not remembering where CarGo came from that will happen when he arrives and I would even bet that it will happen if it’s this season. I don’t know about Holiday being a Yankee/Met it’s way early but have you seen his numbers?
I was also at this game (Section 143)...
a couple of points:
1. Cook really seemed off the first two innings, from his warmup pitches on, but from his third inning warmup on seemed to find himself.
2. Street also looked really good…until Ausmus got good wood on the ball and then Loretta’s single was a foregone conclusion to me.
3. It worked out, but intentionally walking Ethier to load the bases with no out, Hurdle? Really? To get to Matt Kemp? Bizarre strategy.
4. Broxton really does have electric stuff—it looked completely different from him than any other pitcher I saw tonight. On the flip side, I don’t know how Stults is getting by—the Rockies should have hit him harder than they did.
5. With the bases juiced in the first, my friend called Ian Stewart’s strikeout due to the fact that he wasn’t timing the fastball well.
6. There were A LOT of Dodger fans where I was…all of them annoying. I’ve never met a Dodger fan that I’ve liked. Then again, I haven’t met very many Dodger fans.
Eschew Obfuscation!
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