Where did we last leave off with the D'Backs? After having lost all three home games in the first series against the Snakes, a week later the Rockies traveled to Chase Field and lost the first two games. Then the team's savior, Aaron Cook, took the mound against Edgar Gonzalez and we wound up with this:

Atkins, Barmes, and Holiday each had a homer in the game. Let's see triple the number of wins for the Rockies in this series against the D'Backs after Thursday's game. Over at the Snakepit, snakecharmer previews the pitching matchups and (surprise! surprise!) gives the advantage in each game to the D'Backs. I'd give a push to the the first and third pitching matchups and the advantage to Owings in the second game. That's really only a result of having seen De La Rosa reach both extremes in his two starts. Well, that is to say, those may be his extremes. If his first start is more indicative of his performance . . . Oh, and the slumping offense needs to show up this series as well.

We know Garrett Atkins is one of those guys getting it done on offense, but

somehow he gets overlooked, his name usually popping up only on message boards with fans clamoring for the call-up of Triple-A prospect Ian Stewart.

And do you know what Stewart has to say about Atkins?

"Atkins is a great player. There’s just no room for me right now . . . But I also look at it as I just barely turned 23 (on April 5), second year in Triple-A. I would think a lot of guys would take that at my age. So I just try not to worry about it."

At least Stewart isn't "clamoring" for his call up; if he was, I guess he's not a "message board," so that would be slightly better.

We might see Julian Tavarez in a Rockies uniform soon, if a source close to the situation is correct.

Greg Reynolds' MLB debut on Mother's Day tomorrow will set the club mark for the quickest ascent by a pitcher to the big league club from their draft date. It's a mark that figures to get broken later this summer by our 2007 first round pick, Casey Weathers, but it's a great accomplishment for Greg and I'm really excited about watching that game. If he's to win it, he'll have to do it without the bat of Matt Holliday aiding him, as Big Daddy is expected to get Mom's day off. Luckily, thanks to Aaron Cook's performance last night, the Rockies only need to scratch out a win in one of these next two games to get their first series win since the middle of April.

That last linked Troy Renck article also includes Clint Hurdle's insistence that Yorvit's the primero uno catcher on the squad. Torrealba's one for four night last night leaves him ranked #64 in offensive contribution out of the 71 catchers to play in the MLB this year in VORP. As I mentioned earlier this week, Chris Iannetta is the sixth best. What's more, as the four guys he left on base last night kind of indicate, Torrealba has been terrible in the clutch, being the worst on the team in win probability added. Iannetta has been the Rockies best when it comes to coming up with the big hit when we need it. I'm not saying, I'm just saying...

Anyway, with the Padres losing five straight, the Rockies can put serious hurt on their chances of being involved in another play-in game with us this year by winning these next two. Pushing them out of contention will also have some indirect benefits around the trade deadline by adding another seller to the pool. Let's show a killer instinct this weekend, guys. BTW, speaking of the Padres, before our series with them in April, I did a Q & A with Ducksnorts' Geoff Young that I completely spaced linking here in a busy week. Ducksnorts is one of two must-read Padres blogs along with Gaslamp Ball, and probably the best place to learn about our rival. Even though the Q and A was in April, the questions were on general themes so the answers still apply.

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.

Okay, so I lied and apparently the fix wasn't as smooth as they made it out to be. Teaches me for being a corporate stooge and just rehashing the company line. At any rate, the good news is that the Rockies actually won the game this afternoon, Aaron Cook assessed our problem and then  took things into his own hands with eight solid to keep the bullpen off the field and two hits of his own to keep the offense rolling. What a guy.

Anyway, Scott Podsednik also looked sharp in relief of Willy Taveras with three hits, and Chris Iannetta hit his first homerun of the season. Matt Holliday doubled to start our two run eighth inning rally, and Ryan Spilborghs finished it with a run scoring single to give the Rockies their final margin.

In separate news, the Jamey Carroll trade was finally finalized, and the player to be named later turns out to be the player to be named right from the get go. Sean Smith comes full circle from being the reported player by Ringolsby to being pulled from the table, to being back on the table and shipped to Colorado.

So, it's the first game that counts against the Padres since last October's tie-breaker when Matt Holliday scored the winning run in the bottom of the 13th inning. Trevor Hoffman remains one of the central characters in that game along with Holliday. Bud Black has this to say about Hoffman:

"The velocity is fine, his arm action is fine. It's just that his location isn't where we're used to seeing it. That is the big thing [...] And he's not totally erratic. He's just off the plate a little bit and some of the walks are a little bit uncharacteristic."

We don't want to see him out on the mound in the ninth since that would mean the Rockies are likely down at that point, but would anyone feel just a bit confident that the guys would be able to comeback while Hoffman's on the mound? I'd want Matt Holliday, recently named NL Player of the Week for last week, at the plate should that happen. All right, so he only has two hits off Hoffman, but the last one he had was the triple in the tie-breaker.

I'd also take my chances with Tulo if the situation arose. It's time for him to snap out of this funk and do it in a big way:

"I am not getting pitched to differently," Tulowitzki said. "I have just gotten away from my approach. I need to use the big part of the field more. It seems like I am constantly grounding out to shortstop. That's not me."

Hopefully his day off on Sunday and yesterday's off day will have helped Tulo get back to his regular approach.

I didn't realize until reading the first question in Thomas Harding's latest mailbag that the Rockies list Scott Podsednik at 6'2", 190 lbs. Not that it's surprising, just quite funny. As Harding points out, this is rampant in college football and gets torn down during the combine and pro days during the NFL Draft season.

This is why you don't want to be a Padres fan. Whether or not it's a true story, it's sad.

Clint Hurdle is considering making a few changes to the lineup today, according to this short entry from the Denver Post. So who gets the day off? Do we see Tulo sit, even though he says he doesn't want to? A change to the outfield this time around? The possibilities are not endless, but maybe Hurdle will get a hit with today's lineup. And no, I don't mean the 'H' column will have a '1' in it. I mean a lineup that collects a bunch of hits and scores enough runs to win today. I know I was just setting that joke up for someone.

Once Kaz Matsui puts his problems behind him and returns to the Houston lineup, the Rockies, Troy Renck speculates, could inquire into Mark Loretta's availability. Renck also notes that O'Dowd concedes that any long-term contract with Holliday will have to start at $100M. And have you forgotten that the Diamondbacks won a World Series in 2001?

Todd Helton hasn't lost his humor: " 'I have one ab now,' said Helton when asked about his trimmer, leaner physique." There are also updates on Redman and Vizcaino in that article.

Time for Cook to continue on his path to a breakthrough season this afternoon.

So whoever came up with the idea to give the snakes their own clubs to make things more fair on Whacking Day needs to get sacked.

At any rate, the good that comes from this early season malaise is that it also serves as an early season wake up call. Tulo's going to sharpen his defense, Matt's going to spend extra time in the cage and the video room to better his AB's. That can only be considered a good thing, but we all know that eventually the bats will come arolund and Tulo's glove will be fine. More worrisome is the pitching situation, the two above links both indicate that Jason Hirsh won't be available until the end of May or beginning of June at the earliest and Mark Redman looked as uninspiring as we'd expect him to be yesterday. It would be nice if our two other starting southpaws can come up with something special over the weekend to bolster our confidence.

Matt's also getting more work outside the batting cage, being tapped to be Qwest's spokesperson as he continues to ring up endorsement deals.

Marana, Arizona is beginning to woo Rockies officials should the team decide it's in their best interest to leave Tucson after the White Sox depart next year. Of course, being just northwest of Tucson, the town is only marginally closer to the Phoenix area where the bulk of teams train, but Marana hosts the PGA's annual Match-Play tournament  and may be an interesting alternative.

Tom Verducci has an excellent piece that somehow encompasses Tulo, Justin Upton, the blooming D-backs/Rockies rivalry, the greatness of the 2005 draft, the remorse of the Toronto Blue Jays for missing the boat in said draft, Denny Neagle and Jackson Holliday even, but somehow makes it work with our prize shortstop the centerpiece that ties everything together.

Less impressive is Phil Rogers' glimpse at the Rockies, where he waffles all over the place about whether the Rockies are a real contender or not. Here's a clue, Phil: They are. Next time, don't be so afraid to make a commitment.

Brian Howell has a column about Matt Holliday in which the slugger talks about how comfortable he is right now -in Colorado, with his contract, with the team- and what he expects for 2008.

Troy Renck notes one of the final decisions of camp, the Scott Podsednik-Cory Sullivan debate. He also adds a note on how Miggy's Cabrera's extension for Detroit provides a glimpse of what an extension for Holliday might look like. Which it doesn't, and Dan O'Dowd says as much since Cabrera -as a certain Hall of Famer if his career stays on course- is at a whole other plane of value to a team. The final note backtracks on the Giles trade to the Dodger rumor that had been circulating -as is the case with most reports of this kind involving players certain to be cut- the Dodgers are only interested in Marcus when they don't have to give up anything.

Tracy Ringolsby includes that tidbit on Giles in a brief note, and he also reports how the Rockies want our young pitchers to emulate what they saw from the White Sox hurlers this Spring. So much so that they plan on using video of Buehrle and Vazquez as a reference point.

Renck and Saunders (not to be confused with this couple) reviewed the Rockies Spring, and who they see as its surprises, triumphs and disappointments. They've been driving the Yorvit Torrealba bandwagon this Spring, and once again label him "most impressive". I'm not going to deny that he's looked sharp, but I've been very impressed by both our catchers in camp!  -as the Rox Press Pass notes point out- both Torrealba and Chris Iannetta have combined for a very solid showing at the plate, but I wish they'd talk more about how sharp the two have looked controlling the running game as well. They've been particularly down on Willy Taveras, which has sort of rankled me. Willy T's looked sharper as the Spring has gone along both batting and particularly on the basepaths, and while he had a better March performance last season, you might remember that before he broke out with a five hit game at Shea Stadium on April 25, he was batting a miserable .192 for the first three and a half weeks of the season. What's most important to me is that he's staying limber and showing that he'll be in the lineup more consistently this season. That said, I agree completely that Taveras might want to be aware that Dexter Fowler's coming up fast behind him.

[UPDATE] The Rockies traded Ramon Ramirez to the Royals for a PTBNL.

Oh gee what a surprise, Jayson Nix is the starting second baseman, Kip Wells is headed to the bullpen and Marcus Giles made his goodbyes to teammates yesterday. I wish I had seen that coming. I wouldn't expect much in a trade with the Dodgers, but at least Marcus will be close to his brother again and at home in Southern Cal.

I'm on the road today, so I'm going to have to keep this post very brief and I'll have to wait until tomorrow to check out the new look to the site in more detail. At any rate, go ahead and play with some of the features.

Whoah, I'm over here now.

The Hardball Times is shifting to the NL West for their Five Questions series this week. My Rockies preview will be up tomorrow, but  Ducksnorts' Geoff Young and I came up  independently with one question in common regarding a certain play involving a bald guy -you'll have to wait for my answer- and Jon Weisman also previews the Dodgers today.