Jeff Francis on the side session he had before opting for surgery:
"I was looking at the tape, and it was like, 'What am I doing? What am I trying to work through?' " Francis said Thursday. "My arm angle was wrong. I had no arm speed, no power. I was shocked at what I saw."
So, now the Rockies can move on and look for that fifth starter. He won't be Glendon Rusch, as both Rusch and Dan O'Dowd agreed that his role is as a swingman. But as the article puts it, and as RockiesMagicNumber writes in his latest column, Jason Marquis becomes all the more important. Let's see what average can do; one thing average won't help in is what the first comment to Dave Krieger's article on Francis' injury predicts.
Back to the second link: Helton says he feels better, but is being cautious with what he does during spring training. The precautions he's taking in the field sound as if he'll pinch hit early on in spring training.
Mark Kiszla is paying close attention to the Clint Hurdle Watch. Outside of the part on Blake Street not wanting to win, Dan O'Dowd has a few noteworthy remarks in the piece. So when Kiszla asked Dan O"Dowd how he would measure Hurdle's job performance, what was the response?
"I don't think you need to look at wins," O'Dowd said. [...] "For me, it's none of those things," O'Dowd said. "It's the day-in, day-out process of doing all the little things correctly that his job entails from a leadership standpoint." O'Dowd later says, and is right in saying, that just changing a manager doesn't automatically solve anything; yet, if all you have is a manager who does the little things without any greater success accompanying it, what's the point of having him around? Ian Stewart followed the Tuesday chat on the Denver Post's website and later answered the question on his father-in-law for Troy Renck.