I have a lot to do still today and won't post anymore until tomorrow, but in case anybody missed the series, here's a Rockie perspective of good and bad things:
Good
Brad Hawpe - No Coors effect here but he's benefitting from a definite platoon split, he now has an OPS of 1.206 and is batting .500 on the road.
The bullpen in general - No, seriously, we only gave up two runs in relief in six and two thirds innings. That stat's a little skewed since the bullpen failed to stop the last run from scoring against Joe Kennedy last night, but there are definitely positive signs here, like...
Marcos Carvajal in particular - Maybe he won't get scored on all year, he didn't in April, and after two innings in May he's still without blemish. He's actually looking better out there now than he was a month ago too.
Now for the bad:
Todd Helton - I and everybody else figures this slide is just an outlier, but really it's starting to reach the worrisome stage. He only needs one monster week to come back, now would be nice.
Big Innings - allowed by our starters in the middle of the game. It didn't happen today, luckily, but it's not like Shawn Chacon was trying to avoid it either by giving up seven walks in just five innnings. Going forward, we have to address this, Bob Apodaca has to be feeling some heat.
Big Innings, part 2 - on the other side, we aren't stringing together anything of our own lately to keep up. With Helton slumping in the middle of the lineup and a couple of rally killing spots at the bottom it's no wonder. As soon as Helton heats up this problem should mostly solve itself. Aaron Miles led-off today with a double and scored our only run, but was hitless thereafter. Don't even ask if he drew a walk, you know the answer. Combined the top two spots (Miles and Desi) in our lineup reached base just that once out of eight opportunities.
I'll preview the Petco series tomorrow, have a good night everybody.