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?

So, we already know that Troy Tulowitzki is out for an extended period of time. And Jay Cutler has Type 1 Diabetes. And Joe Sakic and the Avs were humiliated by the Red Wings last night, being swept out of the playoffs. And the Nuggets dropped out of the playoffs after losing to the Lakers earlier this week. What a week for Denver sports.

The Rockies are looking at the recently designated-for-assignment Juan Castro. Castro played for the Reds since a trade there in 2006. As a bench player this season:

That's a -74 OPS+ if you're keeping track. Not that it matters all that much. Last season he put up a .180/.211/.236 line as bench player. He certainly does offer versatility on defense (though his ability has diminished over the years), but we're looking at another offensive sieve when he gets into games. Yet, as the article points out, Castro would spend time with the Sky Sox in order to see how things shake out in the majors first.

Another three-game series against the Dodgers, this time at Coors. Here's to a rousing May start!

So, the biggest problem during last night's game was a) the failure to successfully execute run-scoring plays with men on base, b) a bullpen that couldn't hold a one-run lead, or c) both a & b? Maybe Ryan Speier should have entered the game, since it seems that was the turning point in the game, according to the second link:

So it was that the turning point came when Speier turned around and jogged back into the bullpen. Working in his fourth game in five days, Fuentes suffered a second consecutive hiccup [...].

Actually, Fuentes had pitched in five of the last six games after his appearance last night. And the game Fuentes didn't pitch in was Friday's opening victory against the Astros. That's back-to-back-to-back games for Fuentes. According to Josh Kalk's study on the use of relief pitchers, a reliever loses about a mile and a half per hour on his fastball when pitching three straight days. Just something to note.

Also, part of the confusion over who was going to come in to replace Bucky is a result of Bob Apodaca dealing with a family matter. Bullpen coach Rick Mathews moved to the dugout, leaving the pitchers in charge of the 'pen. Fuentes thinks the mix-up occurred as a result of Micah Bowie incorrectly taking the call. Well, that was not the worst thing Bowie did last night. The Rockies do not know when Apodaca will return to the team.

Let's see less of the bullpen tonight and more of Jeff Francis.

The changes to the Rockies lineup last night helped the train start rolling, but I don't know if we've got enough momentum yet to be running into Jake Peavy. Of course, everybody remembers the last time we played Jake, and that seems to be the story for tonight's matchup, but what I will be looking at mostly is how Jeff Francis responds after struggling thus far to find the same kind of success he had last season.

I guess I should save those kinds of questions for the gamethread, which I should probably work on posting right now as well.  So once again, sorry for keeping light on the content this week.

Okay, as many of you may be aware, we had a bit of a discussion late into the night about some of the excessively negative vibes certain players on the team are getting from users of the blog. I want to re-emphasize that one of Purple Row's guiding principles (and one of our rules, I might add) is that we don't want to get awash in cynicism and to stay forward looking and positive. I'm fine with people expressing their well articulated and thoughtful opinion that a player isn't up to snuff, but hammering it home in every plate appearance thereafter of said player isn't constructive and doesn't add anything but bad mojo for other users.  Let me give a couple of deliberately silly examples of good and behavior:

Rox Girl (when lineups are posted): Oh man, Holliday's starting today. Frickin' Hurdle, we'll be lucky to score two runs.

Rox Girl (plate appearance #2): Oh, freak, I'm going to the fridge. Matt's up this inning, so it's not like I'll be missing anything.

Rox Girl (after returning, and seeing thirty new comments): Matt hit a HR?!!! That's a sign of the apocalypse if I've ever seen it.

Okay, so this would have been a better way of me handling it:

Rox Girl (lineups): I really think Holliday's home/road splits show that maybe he's better suited for a reserve role. I hope Hurdle's right in playing him here.

Rox Girl (PA #2): Wow, it's eight o'clock already? My undying devotion to the Rockies made me miss dinner again! I better go get something to eat.

Rox Girl (after returning): Yay! Matt hit a homerun! Woot! BTW, anybody see how Seth Smith is doing? We are so set at this position if we ever needed to make the switch.

I definitely don't want to single anybody out on this, because I've fallen into the poorly worded negative camp too frequently myself. All these players want to succeed and the Rockies to win just as much or more than we do, their jobs, livelihoods and dreams are at stake, after all, most of us don't put quite so much on the line with the outcomes of these games. This is something that we probably should take from Yankees and Red Sox fans, that it's a symbol of achievement and pride just to be able to put on a Rockies uniform, and we as fans should in turn be proud and supportive of the few that have earned that privilege.

That doesn't mean we want blind allegiance to the players, but they should be granted some measure of respect from all of us. Russ and I will be using the new platform's warning feature a bit more frequently in this regard this week. If you catch me being too harsh on somebody myself -Kip Wells, Mark Redman have been fairly frequent targets- feel free to flag my comment as inappropriate. I don't think cynicism is a category, but you could call it spam or something and I'll know what I've done.

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Kaz Matsui (rearing to go after his preseason health issues) isn't the only former teammate the Rockies will play against in Houston this week, Shawn Chacon is likely to start against us as well.

Tulo's batting practice went well yesterday, reports are that he turned green and ripped his shirt off before peppering the left field stands with souvenirs and Jeff Francis will get two bullpen sessions before he starts on Thursday are two of the several notes found in this morning's papers.

Troy Renck's mailbag goes into some looming personnel decisions. Reading between the lines, you can tell that Renck is a bigtime Garrett Atkins fan, and wishes the Rockies would have traded Ian Stewart already. I love Atkins' bat too, and I'm glad we have it for as long as we will, but I understand exactly why the Rockies aren't going to sign him if they can sign Holliday instead. Stewart by himself wouldn't have returned a comparable player in a trade, with Atkins we are far more likely to get equal value -or better even- in return. I also wish Renck was a little more clear in the last answer: the reason the Braves and Nationals had a one game series on the thirtieth was because the Nats requested the opportunity to show off their new stadium in a game that actually counted when the rest of the MLB wasn't playing. The league gave them that favor.

Barry Bonds HR No. 762, hit off Ubaldo Jimenez at Coors Field, went for
$376,612 at auction Saturday night. Rockies fan Jameson Sutton -who wound up with the ball- should be able to pay his step-dad's medical bills with that. Jameson, if you or your stepdad ever venture around the Row, know that we wish both of you good health and prosperity going forward and I'm very happy that it was somebody who actually needed the money that wound up with the ball.

Doug Davis' surgery for thyroid cancer "was very successful," the team doctor said. As Davis recovers and works his way back towards pitching in the majors, the Rockies and D'Backs meet for round two this season. In the first round the D'Backs rang the Rockies' bell, but with the Rockies' bats seemingly coming alive on Wednesday this time it should be more of a challenge. First up is Francis vs. Webb, and Francis will want to get back at the D'Backs for his last outing. Twelve hits and five runs is not up to snuff. Nor is allowing three home runs. Plus, the D'Backs are riding a six-game winning streak. We don't need to see that go any longer.

What about those Giants? They're now winners of three straight after Kevin Correia threw 7 2/3 scoreless innings against the Cardinals last night. The Rockies don't need to be competing for the bottom of the NL West. Besides, I think Adam Wainwright was just being nice to the Giants by getting their hopes up for just a bit longer.

Since Josh Fogg is no longer a Rockie, the team needed a new player representative in the Union. Fogg tabbed The Physicist for that role.

Todd Helton says that the ivy grown at Coors helps hitters since some of the shine is eliminated.

Between the end of our brief World Series appearance last fall and today, everything that's been said about the moves made by the Rockies should have included a caveat, such as in theory or well, that's what I'm seeing, anyway tagged to the end. Jayson Nix' defense will make us say, "Kaz who?" in theory. Kip Wells will blow chunks. Well, that's what my numbers are seeing, anyway. It could be anything like that, but you get the drift. Before today, it's all speculation. Some of the speculation has more secure footing in data analysis and observation, some of it comes from a horse's backside. As of now, it doesn't really matter, the words are empty and the actions start counting.

While some NL West pundits outside the organization are at least a bit concerned about  us, many still have us on the outside of the division's top trio for 2008. Something of an anomaly that they aren't quite sure how to deal with, yet. That the numbers don't favor us right now, shouldn't be a concern. They didn't last season either, and we know how that worked out. Having the opposition's fanbase be cautiously skeptical beats the situation we were in last season when we were flat out ignored. The Rockies just need to go out now and show that they are the force to be reckoned with that we expect them to be.

I think what we have to pay attention to early this season are the following:

1.  Jason Hirsh's recovery needs to progress smoothly. Mark Redman and Franklin Morales are operating without a net right now, and whether that net becomes Hirsh being ready to come back or if it's Wells unexpectedly showing the command he needs to step up, we need some sign that indicates that our rotational depth is still there.
2.  Similarly, pay close attention to Greg Reynolds and Brandon Hynick in their minor league starts. We probably won't need them to be ready right away, but a progression to being ready by August will be crucial for the stretch run. It should be considered no coincidence that the three teams with the best records in the majors after August 1 last season, the Yankees (Phil Hughes, Ian Kennedy) Indians (Aaron Laffey) and Rockies (Morales, Ubaldo Jimenez), had critical contributions from fresh from the farm rookie pitchers.
   
3.  The bottom of the lineup in crucial situations. This ventures into the realm of luck, it's not a skill or predictable at all, but let's face it, luck will have a lot to do with how the season plays out -particularly in a clustered division like ours- and if the breaks don't fall our way, we could be in trouble. If they do, more pressure will be put on our opponents. With that in mind, watch how Torrealba/Iannetta and Nix respond in close and late and RISP situations. If the bounces go our way early, we shouldn't need to pray for another run like last season late in the year.
   
4.  Stadium to stadium performance. I had a post this offseason about measuring team offense that actually surprised me with the normal distribution pattern that appeared in teams' stadium to stadium performances in a given season. One part of what this indicated to me was that early season road trips could be more informative of a team's overall strength than I would have guessed. The Rockies will get one chance to perform in St. Louis this year, taking advantage of it -or not- might be an important sign of what's to come for the team in 2008. Maybe Jeff Francis is right to be nervous. Anyway, I'll be measuring our series in St. Louis and the D-backs go in Cincinnati as important early season barometers of team strength.
   

I'll have more up today about the series and the game thread, obviously, but this should do for now.