At least we know that Jason Marquis will perform adequately should the need arise for a rehab stint in Colorado Springs after he led the Rockies to a 5-0 victory in yesterday's B-squad game against the Diamondbacks. The next step will be to see how he carries that over to facing MLB hitters the next time he goes out to pitch. Glendon Rusch, Josh Fogg, Ryan Speier and Samuel Deduno also pitched well against the Baby 'Backs. From Hurdle's quote at the end of the linked Thomas Harding article, it sounds like Deduno has picked up where he left off before being sidelined with elbow surgery:
"He has a good, low fastball -- a live fastball -- and a hard, sharp breaking ball," Hurdle said.
Deduno should be a strong contender for a late season call-up, and could be a bigger help to the team than a lot of fans realize given his sparkling results when healthy.
Dan Ortmeier, Sal Fasano and Chris Nelson were singled out by Harding and also by Steve Foster at Inside the Rockies for having strong days at the plate, Foster indicates that Dexter Fowler still hasn't found the hitting stroke that went absent in Beijing last summer.
Troy Renck takes a look at the impact of the Manny Ramirez signing on the rest of the division. Like him, I see that there's no doubt that the Dodgers are a better team with Ramirez than they are without him, but we both agree that their pitching staff remains an unanswered question and it's too early to concede anything to them other than the title "defending champs".
The Rockies announced new deals with 21 of their team controlled players, including Ryan Spilborghs, Chris Iannetta and Fowler. Tracy Ringolsby writes more about this and how a certain agent has taken a stance against the automatic renewal policy by refusing to have his players agree to the contracts.