Our rotation is now very young, but showing signs of promise, as suddenly I get the feeling that the Rockies are in a rebuilding mode. This was probably needed, the quality of our rotation last season wasn't great. The quality right now still isn't great outside of Cook, but it's a lot more promising. These guys are young, but they're not too young and while it's frustrating to watch the inconsistency, our depth has been building and it should be a solid bunch that allows us to win more often than not over the next few seasons.

As for our offense, we're still not doing well with situational hitting. Players come up, they have a chance to produce and then it seems we always wind up with the worst possible outcome. The only player who contributed more to a win than a loss yesterday according to WPA was Ryan Spilborghs, unless you count Alberto Arias' one out recorded. Of course, it's been the self defeating story of our season that the guys who contribute most toward a win are followed immediately in the batting order by the guys who contribute most to the loss. In this case, that was the normally solid Chris Iannetta who apparently caught the disease the rest of the team has with RISP.

Owings, Webb and Haren or Johnson, Owings and Webb? Randy's ailing back kept him from pitching in the rain yesterday, so we get the latter combo of Arizona pitchers in our series that starts tomorrow. It's probably preferable at this point to facing Dan Haren, and we suddenly have decent match-ups with all three with Francis, de la Rosa, and Cook. Thursday's Cook/Webb game looks to be one of the best in the MLB this week.

Mark Redman's contract included a waiver of his right to refuse a AAA assignment, and that's why he's got a bus ticket to join the Sky Sox in Colorado Springs. Well, he 's probably making enough to afford a plane ticket. At any rate, he and Morales can

Happy Mother's Day!

It's a pink Sunday as Major League Baseball goes to bat against breast cancer. Garrett Atkins' mother, Diana, beat cancer, and 14 years later she's still going strong. Garrett couldn't feel better:

"I'm definitely blessed," he [Atkins] said. "I still get to have her around. A lot of people lose their moms or their sisters or loved ones when something like that happens. To tack on an extra 14 years so far, the things she's been able to watch me and my sister accomplish is something she's real happy about. I'd like to help in any way I can."

Clint Barmes had to deal with his mother's cancer back in 2006, but things are better now:

"During that time I didn't want to talk about it. But it was very scary at one point," Barmes said. "We are lucky that they caught it in an early stage. She's doing really well now."

And Ryan Spilborghs has this message for his mother (click on his name at the bottom of the right column):

This Mother's Day is special because you've been sick, but you're on the road to recovery which is great. This offseason, I realized how awesome you are. I've gotten to spend more time with you every day. You're going through some stuff that's painful but you always have a smile on your face and it puts everything in perspective. A bad day at baseball is not really that bad of a day at all. I'm so proud to be your son. You make me realize how special life is every day. You're my hero.

-----

The Padres aren't as interested in Cory Sullivan after learning that his salary is $1M (end of article) this season.

Greg Reynolds makes his first major league start. His mother will be in attendance (see link to Barmes' story).

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?

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.

Spilly knew exactly what to say about his at-bat right after he made that phantom catch:

"That was probably my favorite at-bat I've had in my entire life," Spilborghs said.

Cecil Cooper's not getting laughs out of that, having been thrown out of the game during his argument with home plate umpire Rick Reed: "[...] I thought they all blew it. Simple."

Not lost in all of this is the great start Cook had and the effective relief from Fuentes and Corpas. Hopefully Cook's start rubbed off on U-Ball and we'll see something similar out of him today. We want to see the new youngster outduel the at-one-time new youngster for the Rockies in Shawn Chacon. It'll be a "more special start" since all of Colorado will be able to see him pitch against his home state team.

Also found in that last link, we find out that Hurdle wants Morales to work on his move to first base in order to correct his balk problem and that Clint Barmes really is a super utility player as he'd be the emergency catcher if Torrealba and Iannetta both went down in a game. Second, short, third, pitcher, catcher, and he could play the outfield in a pinch. He's a man for all seasons.

The Giants will look to help all-glove, no-bat starting shortstop Brian Bocock by purchasing the contract of the speedy all-glove, no-hit shortstop Emmanuel Burriss. He's certainly off to a better start this year than he was last year in the minors. Probably won't help all that much, and McCovey Chronicles slogan of "All Outs, All Season" will still be true.

In former Rockie players news, Josh Fogg has joined Jeremy Affeldt in the Cincinnati bullpen after Matt Belisle was named as the starter for Monday's game, one Fogg had been schedule to start.

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.