The 2010 season was ultimately a disappointing season for the Colorado Rockies, hitting a ridiculous losing streak at the end of the season to sink any chance of taking the NL West from the San Francisco Giants. But 2010 was a bigger deal for the Rockies for 38 reasons:

Ubaldo Jimenez.

Heading up through the All Star Break, Ubaldo was drawing comparisons to Juan Marichal, Bob Gibson, and Pedro Martinez. After his 3rd start of the season (in which he no-hit the Braves), Ubaldo's ERA sat at a healthy 1.29, and didn't return above the 2.00 mark until after June 3rd. The season-low ERA for Ubaldo came on Memorial Day, when he threw a 4-hit, 9K, 2BB shutout of the San Francisco giants. That low point sat at 0.78. People were wondering when Jimenez would come back to earth - or IF he would come back to earth.

In a bigger sense though, Ubaldo's 2010 mastery put the Colorado Rockies on the map for something other than gimmicky offensive numbers and absurd late-season runs to the postseason.

Colorado had an Ace, and Rockies pitching was no longer a joke.

This newfound ability to pitch as well as hit certainly didn't go unnoticed by NL Manager Charlie Manuel, as Jimenez was named the starter for the 2010 All Star Game, over fellow Aces Josh Johnson, Roy Halladay, and Adam Wainwright. High praise indeed.

As noted in yesterday's Know Your Foe, the game was a pretty great one for the NL, as they, you know, won. Jimenez was a bit shaky in his 2 innings of work, allowing 2 hits, a walk, and a strikeout.

The Rockies have had pitchers selected to the All Star Game before. Mike Hampton was the first, and we also saw Shawn Chacon, Brian Fuentes, Aaron Cook, and Jason Marquis selected at different points, to varying degrees of success.

But Ubaldo Jimenez being named the starter was something entirely different. That recognition was more than just excitement over a half season, it was more than being named to an exhibition game. Ubaldo Jimenez being named the NL Starter for the All Star Game said, just for a moment, that Ubaldo Jimenez was the cream of the NL crop, that a pitcher for the Colorado Rockies was the best in the National League.

In the ten All-Star games that Rockies players were a part of prior to the 2003 season, they had garnered 20 total selections, and those selections had hit a combined 343 home runs before the break in their respective seasons, but not one of them went deep in the Midsummer Classic. That is, until July 15th, 2003 at US Cellular Field on the south side of Chicago.

Todd Helton was voted in to the 2003 All-Star Game as the starting first baseman after posting a 1.078 OPS in the first half, including 21 home runs. It was the fourth consecutive season that the Toddfather represented the Rockies in the All-Star Game, but he had limited success in the previous three games; across six plate appearances, he had reached base just once - via an RBI single in the '02 contest.

Continue past the jump to read about how Helton's next two ASG plate appearances turned out.

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Aaron Cook is currently hanging on to his Rockies career by a thread too fine, Charlotte would discard it from her web.  The franchise leader in innings pitched and wins has walked more than he has struck out this season, and his salary has Rockies fans everywhere ready to dispatch of the red-headed erstwhile ace.

His contract is cited accurately as a big warning against longterm contracts for pitchers, and indeed, the 4.0 fWAR the Rockies have gotten from Cook while paying him $30million since is hard to stomach. But don't forget, that contract once looked quite fine.

After the 2007 season, Dan O'Dowd quickly exercised Cook's $4.5million option for 2008, even though injury prevented him from pitching the last six weeks of the 2007 season.  O'Dowd then took a gamble in adding a three-year $30mil extension in addition to Cook's exercised option.  In his first three months since signing the extension (while it was yet to be in effect), Aaron Cook was fantastic.

In 20 starts before the midsummer classic, Cook went 11-6 with a 3.57 ERA, one of the lowest numbers Rockies fans had ever seen from a starting pitcher.  The National League team's manager was Clint Hurdle, and the hometown skipper set out a plan not to use his ace in the exhibition game.  After all, home field advantage for the World Series meant little for a 39-57 team.

Thanks to an RBI Evan Longoria double off Billy Wagner in the eighth inning, this game would go to extra innings, and Aaron Cook would see some action.  Re-visit the magic under the fold...

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The Blake Street Bombers were rock stars in Colorado, but they hadn't done much on the national scene.  In fact, save for a Dante Bichette single which did not result in a scoring chance in 1994, the Rockies did not even have a hit in an All Star Game.  The young team known for electric offense did not contribute to an All-Star scoring rally.

That changed in 1996, when Colorado sent three All-Star hitters to the game for the first of three times.  Dante Bichette was the starter in right field in the last National League victory before 2010.  Bichette certainly had himself a strong first half, hitting .335/.377/.556 with 17 HR, 80 RBI and 14 stolen bases.  

But Bichette didn't even have the best numbers of a Rockie at that game.  In the only season in which he played strictly second base, Eric Young Sr. was a reserve in his only All-Star season.  At the break, Young had these numbers attached to his name:  .345/.428/.451 with 4 HR, 38 RBI and 31 stolen bases.  But it gets better.

It was 1996 that Ellis Burks exploded (a 7.6 rWAR and 7.2 fWAR full season campaign), with raw first half numbers that are just not seen much anymore:  .341/.414/.629 with 22 HR and 72 RBI.  Oh...and his second half OPS was actually better than the first half.

Take the jump to see how it all went down.

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In their first eight years of existence, the Colorado Rockies pitching staff was, simply put, the laughing stock of Major League Baseball. During that stretch, the club finished a season with an ERA under 5 just twice (4.97 in 1995 and 4.99 in 1998), and their home ballpark was widely known as a launching pad - the likes of which baseball had never before seen. So, it wasn't a big surprise that after the 2000 season, the Rockies desperately threw a nine-figure contract at the free agent market's best pitcher - Mike Hampton, formerly of the Houston Astros and New York Mets.

For the first half of the 2001 season, Hampton captured the imaginations of hundreds of thousands of rabid Rockies fans throughout the Rocky Mountain region, as he posted a 9-5 record with an ERA of just 4.02 - a number that, at the time, stood out like a 2.02 ERA would now. In addition to his nearly-unprecedented wizardry on the mound, Hampton posted a first half OPS of 1.035 at the plate, including six home runs. As a reward, Hampton was selected by his former manager Bobby Valentine (who was the NL's skipper that year as a result of the Mets representing the senior circuit in the World Series the year before) as one of the Rockies' three representatives - along with Todd Helton and Larry Walker - for the 2001 All-Star Game to be held at Safeco Field in Seattle.

Read about Hampton's performance in the game after the jump...

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Once upon a time, before the Florida Marlins won two World Series, before the Arizona Diamondbacks squeaked out a title, before the Tampa Bay (Devil) Rays became legitimate contenders, the Colorado Rockies were the darling expansion franchise.

In 1995, Colorado became the quickest MLB expansion organization to reach the playoffs, in the first year of Coors Field.  The Rockies increased their franchise high win total to 83 in 1996, then matched that total in 1997.  

Coors Field was to host the 1998 All-Star Game, and it figured to be another peg in the rise of a promising franchise.  Instead, the Rockies lost five in a row to limp into the break, posting a 37-52 first half record.  At 20.5 games out of first and in fourth place, the All-Star Game ended up being a reprieve from baseball as usual for Rockies fans.

I remember asking my dad to get us tickets to the All-Star festivities, but I think the Rockies falling to 6.5 games out on April 12 soured my pleas.  I did not end up attending what remains MLB's highest scoring game, with 21 runs and 31 hits between the two clubs. 

                1  2  3   4  5  6   7  8  9    R  H  E
                -  -  -   -  -  -   -  -  -    -  -  -
AL All-Stars     0  0  0   4  1  3   1  1  3   13 19  2
NL All-Stars     0  0  2   1  3  0   0  2  0    8 12  1

Larry Walker was selected as a starter by the fans, which should be no surprise, as he won Colorado's only NL MVP award the preceding season and had a .331/.414/.571 first half line. Vinny Castilla and Dante Bichette were the reserves, and recently departed Andres Galarraga represented the Atlanta Braves.

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2008 was one of "those" years for the Rockies, the kind that seem to happen all too often for the club these days. Troy Tulowitzki tore his quad, Garrett Atkins was really starting to show signs of ineffectiveness, and Jayson Nix was the opening day 2B. Manny Corpas fell off of the wagon, giving way to Brian Fuentes having one of the best years of his career, Aaron Cook had a career year, and Ubaldo Jimenez began to show signs of evolving into a top-flight MLB pitcher.

But more visibly, Matt Holliday proceeded to have another fantastic year.

Holliday, who joined Garrett Atkins in 2006 in having a breakout season toward what looked to be 2 very excellent careers, really opened the NL's eyes in 2007 with his monstrous campaign that took the Rockies all the way to their first NL Pennant and first trip to the World Series. Holliday obviously lost the 2007 MVP to Philadelphia's Jimmy Rollins.

From that point, it was clear that Matt Holliday was destined to be a superstar, but after hiring Scott Boras as his new representation, it seemed destined that it wouldn't be with the Rockies.

That all said, Holliday's first half numbers in 2008, when combined with his 2007 mastery, made Holliday an obvious choice to start for the NL All Star Team.

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For a four-year stretch from 2006-09, Brad Hawpe was arguably the Rockies' most consistent player. In the final year of that stretch, his .320/.396/.577 line through the first half of the season earned him a place on the National League All-Star team - the first (and only, to this point) such distinction of his career. Hence, he would travel to St. Louis to represent the Rockies in the 80th annual Major League Baseball All-Star Game.

Hawpe's only teammate that was selected, pitcher Jason Marquis, did not get a chance to pitch in the game, so Brad would wind up being the only Rockie to see action in the game. He entered in the top of the fifth inning, replacing Raul Ibanez in left field, and finally got his first ASG at-bat to lead off the bottom of the seventh inning. It wouldn't be easy, as American League manager Joe Girardi sent Boston closer Jonathan Papelbon in to pitch.

Going up there just looking to hit the first fastball he saw, Hawpe got a center-cut one from Papelbon and put the barrel on it - driving it hard to the opposite field in the process. Off the bat, you knew it had a chance, but homering to the opposite field is no easy task in a place like Busch Stadium. Meanwhile, American League left-fielder Carl Crawford was able to get under the ball due to how long it stayed in the air. Finding himself at the wall, he timed his leap perfectly and, just like that, robbed what would have been a sure home run into the left field bullpen from Hawpe. Brad was unaware of how close he came to a home run until seeing the replay in the clubhouse following the game.

"I don't know if that makes it feel better or worse. Heck of a catch ... what a play he made."

That catch, combined with a base hit that indirectly lead to an AL run (Crawford was out at second on a fielder's choice off the bat of Derek Jeter, but Jeter wound up scoring), earned Crawford All-Star Game MVP honors. Hawpe, meanwhile, struck out in his second (and final) at-bat, which came against Mariano Rivera with one out in the bottom of the ninth inning.

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