It's hard to say how damaging the 2-4 road trip was to our playoff chances at this point, but the disappointment caused by it seems considerably easier to gauge. Watching apparent victory slip away like we did yesterday is certainly crushing. There were good signs, however. Jeff Francis wasn't perfect, but he minimized the damage against him and was efficient. His post-game responses as recorded here and here show maturity and leadership, and not the youthful frustration that would lead him to overreach and slump for several starts in previous years.

Also in a change from previous years -and earlier this season- the fact that Todd Helton even hits that homerun to give us a late lead is welcome even though the end result was much the same.

The schedule does present us a golden opportunity to make up some ground this week, as we have the weakest opponents of our divisional competition by far. We should be able to gain two games with a good homestand and with a slight correction for the D-backs against the Brewers and Cubs. It's scoreboard watching season, it's nice to have that for once.

Update [2007-8-20 16:23:59 by Russ]: The WWL is running an MLB "Face of the Franchise" vote as part of their SportsNation section. Purple Row was chosen for the blogger part of the panel. I think the choice and the explanation for the vote should appear on Wednesday. If you want a hint as to who I chose (actually, Rox Girl chose the guy and convinced me to go with him), click on the Rockies symbol and then look at the choices given in the poll area. He's the one that stands out.