Yesterday's win over the Padres was an audition in front of opposing team's scouts for several players, not just the Rockies. So the beatdown of Randy Wolf winds up as a double win for the Rox, as those scouts couldn't have come away impressed by what they saw. We humiliate the Padres now, and weaken them in the future. How great is that?

Of course, we had our own showroom of luxurious players on display for only the most discerning of buyers. Dave Krieger gives some odds that we find such discernment for players like Brian Fuentes, Garrett Atkins and of course, the masterpiece of our collection, Matt Holliday.

Speaking of whom, according to Ken Rosenthal, the Angels would want us to give them our best player, but also would want us to take a big mistake off their hands. Yes, that makes perfect sense. Gary Matthews Junior is just what we want to replace Matt Holliday. Obviously La Anaheim would need to considerably juice such a deal with wheelbarrels full of cash, wheelbarrels full of prospects and probably wheelbarrels full of In'N'Out burgers to make it work and a case of beer. I don't think those kinds of trades ever come to fruition.

Not mentioned by Krieger, but suddenly available is one Yorvit Torrealba, who has become disaffected by the Rockies decision to start a catcher that produces more than once or twice a week. Since there were scouts in the stands last night, it's probably good that yesterday was one of those times. The Marlins have been looking at the Nationals Paul Lo Duca, but apparently are no longer interested in Yorvit. Otherwise, the buyers in the catching market look absent right now, but I wouldn't expect it remain that way. At the very least, the Rockies should be able to move him this winter. Renck also responds to the Rosenthal report on the Angels interest in Holliday by adding the fact that Matthews has a no trade clause. Matthews would likely waive the clause for a deal to get into a situation where he plays more, but the fact that it would carry over with him to his new club severely limits his value.

St Louis should be added to the list of clubs interested in Brian Fuentes, and suddenly while reading the report I got all hot and bothered:

"Certainly the Rockies are fishing for prospects and names such as (OF Colby) Rasmus, (C Bryan) Anderson and (LHP Jaime) Garcia will be thrown around. John Mozeliak insists he is not going to trade Rasmus. I believe it, but no GM would publicly make available his top prospect since it would only erode leverage.

Nice as it is to think, very nice in fact, that Rasmus for Fuentes may be possible (and this from a St. Louis source, no less) I wouldn't bet the ranch on it. Those other two names he mentions are considerable themselves. The Fuentes derby is looking very likely to net the Rockies something crazy good.

Despite being inconsistent -he had another rough outing against Detroit after being sensational vs. the Mets in his last two start- Jimenez has done a pretty decent job of avoiding disasters this season. Only three of his starts have resulted in him allowing more than four runs, compared to ten that have seen him give up four or less. Part of this early in the season was due to Hurdle handling him with kid gloves and pulling him at the first sign of trouble, but lately it's been more a result of him running into too many deep counts every other game.

I don't know why it seems that the Rockies run support for pitchers sometimes seems so disproportionately skewed according to their abilities at the plate, after all Aaron Cook, no matter how good of a hitter he is, isn't two runs per game better than Jimenez, yet a look at the Run Support for our starters shows that's exactly what he's getting in his starts:

1. De La Rosa 5.42
   
2. Cook 5.02
3. Reynolds 4.07
4. Francis 3.46
5. Jimenez 2.97

Well, okay, maybe the pitcher's hitting isn't it, since JDLR still has .000 in his batting average column for this year. At any rate, it would be nice if the Rockies came up with a few runs off of Wolf tonight for a little more support than Jimenez is used to getting.

Go Rockies!