Blustered and Flustered: Dodgers win rubber match over Rockies on windy afternoon
by Rox Girl on Aug 27, 2009 6:08 PM MDT
in Rockies Game Wraps
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PrintThe final score was 3-2. A two run Matt Kemp bomb in the first inning was the big dagger against the otherwise solid pitching of Jorge De La Rosa, meanwhile the Rockies offense wasn't capable of capitalizing on most of their scoring threats. Seth Smith tripled in a run and scored on a Troy Tulowitzki single in the third to tie the game for awhile, but that was all the scoring the Rockies would do, and a two out Rafael Furcal RBI single in the sixth wound up being the difference.
Moving on, let's look at a couple of bigger picture items:
- The Rockies still haven't won a series against the Dodgers this season.
We can make excuses about not being at full strength, about the questionable strike zones or whatever, but at some point that we still haven't come to, the Rockies have to prove on the field that they are better than Los Angeles. This was the last regular season chance to do it at a friendly field. The Rockies now need to prepare to prove themselves in Dodger Stadium at the end of the season.
Our friends at True Blue LA won't like me saying this, but the Dodgers are a veteran team relative to the Rockies. Meaning we're getting better, they are pretty close to their peak. I'm not saying that our peak is going to be better than what the Dodgers are capable of over the next couple of seasons, just that the Rockies are still in a relative ascendant phase and catching up. If we're talking about next season, LA won't be able to count on 12-3 over Colorado again. Take some comfort in that. If we're talking about this year, read on:
Both teams now have to go out and take care of business before that last October series. Obviously, the Dodgers have a huge advantage with a four game edge and just 34 games remaining. The Rockies have a more challenging next series (at San Francisco vs. at Cincinnati for LA) and then both teams settle into three straight less challenging series. The Rockies best hopes for gaining back those four games will be when LA goes on the road, and in divisional series against rivals. The Rockies must have a better record against the other NL West teams (LA's 22-13 against them so far, the Rockies 21-14) and they must hope that the Dodgers 13/18 road heavy schedule weighs on them, even if it's against weaker opposition, while taking full advantage of a 19/12 home weighted schedule themselves.
If the Dodgers win at the same rate they have all season at home (8-5) and on the road (10-8) their record heading into the last series will be 94-65. In order to be even with them, and thereby be in a position to win the NL West with a best two out of three (because they've lost the head to head series, the Rockies would lose a tiebreaker) the Rockies need to go 22-9. This is a difficult, but doable task given how the team has performed since June and since there are so many home games left on the schedule, so by no means are the Rockies out of it. We will need to win at least one of the two San Francisco series, I think, and obviously St. Louis looms as a large, important series in the final homestand. Besides those, the series between now and our last chance in October are winnable. The Rockies need to push hard down the stretch, but the prize is still within reach.
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We just have trouble with the Dodgers
Okay, so we drop this series. Still a LOT of baseball to go…and four games isn’t insurmountable. Onwards and upwards!
Just saying, I know we want the division and all
but getting the wildcard is just fine with me, and I just want the Rockies to really knock SF out of it, because they are just as bruised as we are. We have the best possible pitching situation going into SF right now, so while we may not need to hit much, we’re going to need to hit it when it counts, which has been our biggest problem.
Today was a tight game, and a good series overall.
I still think the Rockies will make the playoffs, and who knows, the clubs could meet again beyond that final weekend in LA.
Thanks for all the hospitality here, and all the great contributions made by Purple Rowbots over at True Blue LA.
Now go beat the heck out of the Giants.
Yeah, today was disappointing.
I don’t really know what else to say about it. There are plenty of games left, though, and this team keeps bouncing back. Early in the game thread, folks were remarking how Florida and Atlanta dropped off. Partly true. The other part is the Rockies have maintained an excellent pace. Missing Cook and the Dex/CarGon injuries are definitely a concern, but the team has shown too much fight for me to worry too much.
Leave Dexter alone! You're lucky he even performs for you!
The way I look at this series
is: the Rockkies conceded a game to the Dodgers by starting Josh Fogg. In the 2 games they had a chance, they split 1-1.
The team can’t afford to start Josh Fogg types & concede games down the stretch in a tight race, which it looks like it is going to be.
Skipping the 5th spot in the rotation with the off day on Monday makes sense, but if Cook’s not ready to come back thereafter, a Plan B is needed.
I don’t think Chacin is ready, much as I wish he was.
Brad Penny’s probably worth a shot.
As a fallback, I think Russ Ortiz is better than Fogg, or Eaton, or Belisle. Ortiz actually pitched pretty well the first month or so of the season for the Astros, but then got crosswise with the manager & seemed to lose his focus. Or maybe he started to wear down. But if the Rockies can get 2 or 3 decent games out of him, that’s probably enough to take them down the stretch, with Cook hopefully recovering thereafter.
Ortiz might be a disaster. So might Penny be. But the other options are worse, and it’s time to try something different other than Chacin (if he showed nerves in his one start, imagine what he’ll be like if he’s pitching w/ a 1-game lead in the WC race), Fogg (simply not capable of being a starter anymore, despite his lucky run in late 2007), or Eaton.
In short, I don’t want the Rockies to concede any more games until they clinch a playoff berth.
No records in the last 10 years should count.
by Maris6161 on Aug 27, 2009 7:12 PM MDT reply actions 1 recs
I don't see how Ortiz is better than Fogg or Chacin
Ortiz is like Eaton. He’s been horrible for years, and you have to go combing through his game logs merely to find decent starts. They’re all fairly scary options, with a too high a chance of bad performance for comfort. If the team doesn’t trust Fogg or Chacin, and if they have any confidence Cook can come back in Sept., perhaps they should skip the slot next time, then load up with extra arms come Sept 1 and let 2-3 guys go that day with a really short hook.
Leave Dexter alone! You're lucky he even performs for you!
That's how I'd play it as well.
and come the playoffs, you only need a 4 man rotation anyway..so just through Sept, with all the extra arms.
After I wrote that, I noticed the fanshot
saying the Rockies weren’t going to skip the spot. So I guess they’re confident in somebody.
Leave Dexter alone! You're lucky he even performs for you!
I'm not backing Ortiz
as much as I am Penny, and generally opposed to Fogg/Chacin/anyone else we presently have.
I think Penny is the obvious call if he’d come here. AL to NL pitchers this year have generally had success, and moreover he’s clearly comfortable in Coors. I don’t like the guy long term, but I’d think he gives us the best chance to win of anyone while Cook is out.
As for Ortiz v. the field, he’s obviously not a “desireable” option or he wouldn’t be available. I note a few quality starts this year however. I have no confidence at all in Fogg (who I do like as long man) or Eaton (who I don’t like at all) and I agree with the sentiment that Chacin doesn’t seem ready — and more importantly, the organization doesn’t seem to think he’s ready, or we wouldn’t be going through all this. I don’t want to rush the kid unless we absolutely have to, and if we can put Penny or Ortiz out there, we don’t have to.
The fact is, all options are undesireable (as is the proposed bullpen start). I think the Cook injury could potentially be a really serious problem. Its a shame the Dodgers moved faster on Padilla, he looked strong today.
Ah, alas
It sounds like they’re not going for Penny. Renck and Olney have both posted saying the Rockies aren’t likely to pursue him.
Some teamed claimed Rich Harden (whoa, Resolution, whoa boy!); maybe it was the Rockies. I imagine it might take something valuable in trade to get the Cubs to part with him. Then again, I imagine a lot of things that aren’t true.
Leave Dexter alone! You're lucky he even performs for you!
Concerns moving forward
CarGo/Fowler injuries. Obviously the Rockies could easily replace one, but not both.
Cook injury. There is a need for a starting pitcher. Penny Ortiz, Chacin, Fogg, Morales. Whoever it is…needs to pitch better then they have.
Missing Bats: This has been an issue all year, but great defense, and pitching the Rockies have over come it. But in the big series it gets exposed. Stewart, Iannetta are just missing in action. Hawpe since the All-star break has not been good. Smith and Spillbourghs have been inconsistent, especially when starting. Barmes has struggled as well. That’s way too many that are struggling. Over the last month, Tulo and CarGo have carried the team offensively…..and one of those is hurt.
The Giants aren’t done and out. Neither are the Marlins and Braves. The Wildcard, and even the division is still the Rockies to win, but this is like a long distance runner, and it’s time for the last kick.
by Redhawk on Aug 27, 2009 7:17 PM MDT reply actions 2 recs
Hitting has been very unclutch in the las two series
Especially that 14 inning extra inning game.. And even today we outhit the dodgers, but couldn’t make the hits count
We seem to drop off
When Cargo and Dex aren’t in there. Maybe I’m just biased but they seem to spark the lineup more when they both play.
bruised thumb for CarGo
He jammed his thumb a little bit," manager Jim Tracy said. “Nothing is serious, however. He was bleeding and he kind of lost some feeling in his thumb. Keith [Dugger, head athletic trainer] told me because of the bleeding that was taking place, it may have gotten into the joint and numbed his thumb up to where he didn’t feel like he could throw, and he certainly didn’t feel like he was going to be able to grip the bat. I don’t know how he’s going to be for tomorrow, but that was the scenario that developed that forced him out of the game.”
That’s unfortunate. Hopefully this time Tracy gives him all the rest he needs to fully recover.
You wanna know how great baseball is? The greatest basketball player ever left his sport to play baseball.
I'm pretty sure his jammed thumb is a separate issue from his puncture wound
and A didn’t cause B
"I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious." - Albert Einstein
by Andrew T. Fisher on Aug 27, 2009 10:52 PM MDT up reply actions
I hate to say it
but the Rox don’t deserve the division this year. The way they have been thoroughly dominated by the Dodgers leaves them to fight for the wild card. I think they still have a great shot to do that, and it would be awesome for them to do damage in the playoffs, but the Dodgers deserve the NL West.
It takes a big man to cry, but it takes a bigger man to laugh at that man.
I'm sorry,
but I don’t really understand how you can say the Rockies don’t deserve to win the division. Simply because another team bested us in April and May when were pretty much a mess? Our past sin of being bad, precludes us from reaping a great reward for turning into a winner? I really don’t get that at all…
I posted this in the game thread, but I’ll repost here. We deserve the division just as much as the Dodgers if you look at our record after June 3..
I wish I could find the graphic that in this morning’s printed LA Times, but I can’t.
In essence, it was 3 sets of standing.
1) Standings through June 3 – Dodgers 37-18 1st. Rox 20-32 Last 15.5 GB
2) Standings Jun 3 through yesterday- Rox 1st 52-23, Dodgers 3rd 38-34 12.5 GB
3) Standings through today – Dodgers 75-52 1st. Rox 72-55 2nd 3 GB
Well, the Dodgers ARE 4-2 against Jim Tracy's Rockies once we were not as much of a mess
"I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious." - Albert Einstein
by Andrew T. Fisher on Aug 27, 2009 8:48 PM MDT up reply actions
I still disagree with saying we "don't deserve" to win the division
If we manage to win the division, does that me we still don’t deserve it?
I agree with this
Parcells: “you are what your record says you are.” Right now we don’t deserve it, but they don’t stop counting now. Time left to earn it.
without checking,
all but one very close games.
what were we pre tracy – 2-9?? and most of the loses were humiliating.
whoever has the most wins deserves the division title, i could care less about head to head.
It would be pretty funny though if the one team that the Dodgers have dominated throughout the regular season ends up winning the division from them.
Not that it’ll happen, but it would be ironic. :)
You wanna know how great baseball is? The greatest basketball player ever left his sport to play baseball.
I still think it could and WILL happen
The Dodgers have been slowing down. The Rockies have not, and we just played several good teams. No team right now is with out issues, including the Rockies….but the Dodgers have issues too.
It could happen.
The Dodgers don't deserve anything.
The Dodgers or Rockies can earn the division by having the best record at the end of the season. The Dodgers success against the Rockies helps them to that, but beating the second place team isn’t how the title gets awarded, or else the Red Sox would “deserve” the AL East this season over the Yankees, the Twins would deserve the AL Central over the Tigers and the Rangers would “deserve” the AL West over the Angels. Those divisions aren’t likely to finish that way, and none of those fans should complain about second place if their teams couldn’t take care of business outside the rivalry games.
I would add...
…that “deserve” is an often mis-used word in sports. I much prefer Bill Parcells flat-out “You are what you are.”
nice
I obviously didn’t read down this far when I posted, this same thing above. Sorry for ripping off your thought…
No prob
and you got the right quote now that I think of it… "you are what your record says you are."
I agree that you are what the record says you are
and I won’t complain if we win the division, but frankly if you can’t beat the team ahead of you in the standings you are unlikely to get it anyways. And its not as simple as saying oh we’ve lost the series to the Dodgers 10-8, we are talking about not taking 1 series all year and yes that includes our time when Tracy has been the manager and we have been playing at a high level. If we are able to take the last series of the year and possibly sweep to win the division, I will be all for it, but I disagree that head-to-head means nothing. It means less in baseball because of the huge amount of games, but they do matter and so far have shown the Rox to be an inferior team to the Dodgers. I think Rg, you are being a little disingenuous about the Yanks and Red Sox, because the Yanks have dominated the most recent matchups, we have not.
On a side note, I do think we met the Dodgers at the wrong time in this series. We just ran into some tough luck, not having a healthy Fowler, or CarGo, especially considering how hot CarGo was. Also not having Cook, and the Dodgers not having to face our 2 hottest pitchers, while we faced their 2 hottest pitchers in Wolf and Kershaw. I guess game 3 was the disappointing game for me.
It takes a big man to cry, but it takes a bigger man to laugh at that man.
Dodgers have a very favorable schedule
They are playing just 9 games against winning teams (SF, COL ) 6 of them at home from now on.
Rockies have 12 games against winning teams (9 of them on Road), While SF has 19 games against winning team (6 of them on Road and 4 against hapless cubs)
I'm not sure why you're so doom and gloom
Schedules against winning/losing teams aren’t quite as important as where you’re playing them. The Dodgers get to play visit a lot of teams with winning records at home such as Pittsburgh and San Diego, quite a few more than the Rockies. Their schedule isn’t as easy as you’re making it sound, our’s isn’t as difficult.
Also, as crazy as this may seem
the weather here in Cali, both norcal and socal, is hitting the hot and dry period, September and October. This could definitely help the Rox against the Giants as it hopefully will be more akin to Colorado:) . I’ve been watching the SF/AZ game and the balls are traveling farther…
Cali weather
Calls for smoke. Was just watching the fires out my office window, crazy stuff.
Yeah, LA
this fire seems to be close to the Griffith Park Observatory, nothing as bad as the SD fires a few years ago but still not cool. I was actually supposed to go to that SD/Miami Monday Night Football game that got moved to AZ during the fires…
I was at the game today.
It was a bit sad, but It was a very good matchup of two very good teams. And the atmosphere was thrilling. Somehow, losses don’t seem as disappointing to me when we are winning. I guess it’s because I know we have a legit chance of winning every game, so there is always tomorrow.
so i was listening a little bit to SF broadcast
during the game…they still don’t sound so positive that Sandoval and Molina will be ready for our series…hope that they don’t play but i assume they will
we seem to have gotten over that HURDLE
"TuLoRocks2008 had the most comments I've seen in any game thread this year (322)...Can such a feat be eclipsed?" ..... Bring it on!!
Giants lose 11-0...
They use up Valdez and Howry today, so we may not see them until Sunday.. Rest of bullpen didn’t factor much during this series…
That does it for me. I’m finished with the Rockiez this season. Why? Because even if they make it to the playoffs, they’re bound to play the Dodgers. And we all know they can’t beat the Dodgers this year. You’re just wasting your time. I, on the other hand, will now open my weekends to filming and writing that the Rockiez formerly occupied.
Well done, guys. Wait until next year!
Since JULY 3-5 vs Arizona
LA is the only team to beat us in a home series since May 14.
"I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious." - Albert Einstein
by Andrew T. Fisher on Aug 27, 2009 11:27 PM MDT up reply actions
I'm sort of glad about the Rockies' current status.
We’re getting our injuries and bad call-ups out of the way now. That way, hopefully by the middle of September, we will have a full roster of healthy players and we know most of the guys that aren’t ready for the Big Show.
There’s still a lot of baseball to play (34 games). We have two series against the Giants on the road, one series against LA in LA, and one against the Cards at home. These are most likely the biggest series, and account for almost 1/3 of the remaining games. If we can go 24-10 or better, I think we will definitely make the playoffs. Let’s see how they do!
-Joe
I dunno..
I think its doable. 21-7 in June of this year, right after Tracy was hired. We’ve lost no more than 3 in a row..(correct me if I’m wrong)….and of course, magically, 21-1, in 07 to get to the WS in 07….
I believe
Yeah but
a) you KNOW that streaks are beautiful, rare, unpredictable creatures, and b) we’re just not playing all that well (when was the last blowout win?) and c) the Doggers and the Gnats have just as much to play for, and care for, as we do and d) we’re finally succumbing to the injuries which miraculously didn’t happen through the first 3/4 of the season. We’re not a .700 team; I’d argue strongly we’re not a .600 team, not right now.
It’s doable, of course – but I reckon we’ve had our magic unicorn period of the season, and now we’ll be scrapping and scrabbling along with all the other NL contenders and while we can do it – and probably should do it – it’s going to be messy, painful and go down to the wire…
I mentioned "magical" 07, .
to have some fun.
I actually do not believe that 07 run was magical. They scrapped and scrabbled out wins in that run. They had decent pitching, timely hitting albeit with more power and incredible record-setting defense.
But our 09 men of summer also have been scrapping and scrabbling a good deal of the time and I don’t see that changing. We have won with solid pitching, excellent defense, and generally timely hitting.
I think against the Dodgers we caught a bad break with injuries. We might have run out of some gas too, after the long games against the Giants and the extra inning win against the Dodgers. The Giants have a slight edge in pitching, but are inferior defensively and offensively. As for the Dodgers, I think they have gotten into some players heads.
On the injury front, I believe staying injury free isn’t miraculous. Its good trainers and players watching their bodies. I do think Aaron Cook may have had some problems long before his toe. He hasn’t had his stuff for quite a while, and had issues with his sinker pretty much since the All-Star break.
07 was a wild ride but happened because the Rockies played fearlessly and with confidence. Much like this year.
In neither case, was it a magical unicorn ride.
We’ve been darn good.
Here's my reasoning.
We will probably win one game in each of the three series agains SF and LA on the road, so there’s 6 losses. I think we can go 2-1 against the Cards at home, so there’s 7 losses. We have the Mets at home with no Santana or Wright, Reds at home, and Padres and D-Backs . I think we will only lose 3 of all those games, most likely all of them on the road. We should be able to take all of the games from the Mets, Reds, D-Backs at home.
I’ll admit it is very optomistic, but if we can do that we have a shot at the division, and would guarantee a playoff spot. A more conservative estimate would be 21-13.
-Joe
i think we weill go somewhere between
19-15 and 22-12…can’t see 24-10 but i think even at like 19-15 or 20-14 91 or 92 wins should make the playoffs
we seem to have gotten over that HURDLE
"TuLoRocks2008 had the most comments I've seen in any game thread this year (322)...Can such a feat be eclipsed?" ..... Bring it on!!
by TuLoRocks2008 on Aug 28, 2009 8:24 AM MDT up reply actions
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