I haven't decided what to gripe about this morning. Is it the rain that cancelled the fireworks in Golden? Is it the fact that I'm wide awake entirely too late at night? Is it the fact that Jim Tracy sent Jason Hammel back out into the game past 100 pitches despite the fact that Monday is an off day and Hammel is like the worst pitcher in the history of baseball once he crosses the 100 pitch border? Perhaps we'll fault him for sending Seth Smith on a sac fly attempt that had Jamey Carroll saying "damn, they send him on THAT?" How about Todd Helton "redeeming" himself by accomplishing nearly the weakest way the Rockies could have won that baseball game, a sac fly, after grounding into an inning-ending double play and watching an inning-ending strike 3? Or maybe I can go with Jack Corrigan's referring to Beimel, Betancourt, and Belisle as the Rockies' "Killer B's" which is just wrong on all counts. Possibly I could take the dropped foul popup (which according to Jack had Iannetta yelling for when Mora called him off at the last second and then didn't go for the ball, and which the game thread decided Iannetta was all up in Mora's business, either way, botch) which ended up being a pretty big deciding factor in the 6 innings of hilariously bad attempts at small-ball.
Well, whatever, I'm not working on Monday, so let's find things NOT to complain about. How about Jason Hammel's 7 innings of ownitude? 8 punchouts, 1 BB, and no runs? That's some sick stuff. I'm pretty sure Jim Tracy came in to pitch the 8th and then pulled himself for Matt Belisle. How about Esmil Rogers' 5 innings of 2-hit ownaliciousness? Or here's a good one, Dexter Fowler's complete ownership of Giants' pitching, including 2 triples, 4 walks, and 3 of the Rockies' 4 runs? I need one more... how about Chris Iannetta's 2-hit-3-walk day including an 8th inning solo shot? Yeahhh those will all do.
The most important thing to remember from the entire weekend, of course, is AMURRRRICA!!!! ....eh, needs more vuvuzelas.
So now that we've recapped Sunday, what else is there to blather about? Well, I don't have anything too specific other than the Rockies should start listening to the Purple Row staff. We're all genius level bloggers. Namely Jeff Aberle. (I'm posting this now because I think he's still out of town and there's a distinct chance he won't see it.)
Blathering past the jump.
We could blather about Manuel Corpas. He's been terrible recently. I'm quite pleased he didn't get into Sunday's game. Jim Armstrong makes some notes and comments about how Corpas is tired, is trying to man up and pitch through the tiredness, but now his pitches don't work right. Well, I appreciate the effort and the fight and stuff but go get with Dugger and figure out what's up and get back to being not-horrifyingly-bad, alright?
We could blather about Jorge De La Rosa, whom we are pegging to be some sort of Purple Salvation or something, but we'll have to wait and see if his promising rehab is going to translate into "oh hai I is gud picher stil" or if we're going to go back to that old tired "OH NOES IT IS BAD JORGE PULL UP THE DRAWBRIDGE THE MOAT WILL STOP HIM" schtick. Funny thing about this piece from Armstrong is summed up in this little dialogue:
Me: "Gee Jim Tracy, when is Jorge de la Rosa gonna be back? All I know now is that rehab is going well and that I don't know when he's gonna be back."
Jim Tracy: "Well you see Jorge is a special player and his rehab is something that I am going to be noncommittal to in my comments. I can't tell you when he's coming back because I don't know."
Me: "Awesome so I now know exactly what I knew before"
But I digress.
Let's maybe blather about All-Star snubbings, shall we? Troy Renck has a fun rant about how wrong it is that Miguel Olivo isn't going to be in the ASG (he even writes "Ugh."). He also says it's wrong that Votto is not there either! Also the Padres' bullpen! I maintain for the reasons that Renck puts forth, the All-Star Game is still stupid.
Dave Krieger isn't giving up though. He's waving the VOTE CARGO flag like many people here are. I'm probably gonna vote for Votto or Zimmerman. I'd love to say that I think Gonzalez belongs there but I just don't think he does.
Oh and just so you know Clint Barmes is awesome.
And last but certainly not least, the Rockies have signed Venezuelan 16-year old Jose Tovar for a $350k bonus. Kid is carrying nasty stuff and also has trouble locating it. Because we need another left-handed Venezuelan who strikes out and walks a zillion guys.
Anyhow, if you have the day off, enjoy the crap out of it, and I'm going to .... Well I don't know what I'm going to do. Maybe go to the Cherry Creek Arts Festival. Haven't decided.