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.

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).

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.

While I'm always happy with outcomes like yesterday, having one starter who can't lose and four who can't win doesn't help us in the long run. Trade for another? Maybe, but the quality and service time of the starter the Rockies would need certainly limits our available options on the trade front to just about zero. I think we've got to wait a little to make sure that we're really in a position to contend this season in the first place and also to see if other teams open up the availability of their young and talented pitchers. I certainly don't think it's in the club's best interest to trade for a pending free agent or give up prospects if we're still ten games back at the All-Star break.

Clint Barmes didn't start yesterday, but his productive bat has been a definite positive for the Rockies in the wake of Tulo's injury. Jack Etkin writes about what he's been doing to elevate his hitting skills .

Woody Paige learned a valuable lesson about baseball from the Rockies last season; that early May is not the time to panic. Still, the issues facing the Rox right now are a bit more complicated than they were at any point in 2007, and the start of the D-backs more daunting.

I speculated in the game thread that Chris Iannetta's opposite field sac fly with the bases loaded yesterday might have been more impressive
to Clint Hurdle than a walk in regards to his playing time , even though the latter saves the out and leaves the team in a better position to score more. I may have been right:

We are knocking on that door," Hurdle said. "Iannetta has done a good job with the at-bats he's had. He's been very productive."

Meanwhile, Taylor Buchholz figures to see more late inning work given his strong performance in 2008 to date.

What is the answer to what's affecting the Rockies? Jeff Baker's bat helped a bit last night, but his defense left something to be desired, and while Tulo's defense was missed, our lineup has too many automatic outs when he's playing right now. If we can't trust Corpas or Fuentes out of the pen, who can we trust?

I guess there are a few ways you can go about trying to find a solution to these issues. Last night, the method Hurdle chose was to try and fit a square peg in a round hole with the Barmes/Baker combo. It almost worked.

While I doubt Hurdle's going to mess with the Fuentes/Corpas combo, and he probably shouldn't, the Rockes have been tinkering with other parts of the pen. Micah Bowie and Jose Vizcaino apparently had the same injury -I think gooberpitchatitis of the forearm is the technical term- and Bowie now joins the Viz on the DL. Let's hope Josh Newman is as effective a replacement from the farm as Ryan Speier has been.

What's up with these fomer LBSU shortstops jumping into long term contracts so quickly? Some people questioned the Rockies signing Tulo to a six year contract after only one full season in the majors, but yesterday the Tampa Bay Rays locked in Evan Longoria after what, two weeks? That's certainly pushing it, if you ask me, but I have to admit I'd actually be pretty pleased if I were a Tampa fan with this news.

The Rockies aren't worried after yesterday's loss, and they shouldn't be after going four and two on the I-8 to I-10 road trip, as they could put themselves in a decent position heading into May if they can pull out three more series wins to close April. Of course, getting series wins in these weird two game sets against the Phillies and Cubs means that we'll want another four game win streak to start tonight. After that, it's back to the West Coast to face the Dodgers.

Hurdle's quote at the end of that article indicates that Jayson Nix's role has shifted from starter to reserve. As long as Barmes continues to hit as well as he has, I'm not going to complain.

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.

Hey... I kind of remember this feeling. Last September/October, I think it was... although for some reason I kind of remember that these things are best when they last three weeks or so.

As Hunter Pence says, you have to give some credit to Franklin Morales for rebounding from a horrible first inning to squelch the 'Stros, but I think the difference last night was the production up the middle that's been missing. Six hits, including five doubles plus an HBP for the Tulo/Barmes/Ianneta trio qualifies as far and away the best game we've gotten offensively this season from those positions.

It says something when a team's bench players play so well, typically that something is "time to make a different bench." I think Hurdle's going to ride out Barmes' hot streak, and I think Iannetta is already starting to see more time (this was his third start this week) which probably should be expected with guys hitting over .400. For right now, I don't think it's a bad move as long as it's handled well with Nix and Yorvit.

At any rate, just like that we're second in the division and two games out of the Wild Card. Take that all you over-eager pundits that wrote us off too fast. The Rockies are still here.

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.