Sandwich Awards: Tulo keeping up with CarGo - ESPN (Insider only)
Troy Tulowitzki is officially on fire. In ten September games, the Rockies' leader has posted a 1.592 OPS with eight homers, three doubles, and a triple. For the season, his OPS now sits at .961. With the inevitable temporary cold streak that Carlos Gonzalez has experienced over the past few games, it's only natural that somebody else stepped up and started tearing the cover off the ball. It's in this team's DNA - especially for this to happen in September. Here's some good stuff about Tulo from an NL scout:
"He's such a competitive guy that I really think he sees one of his teammates (i.e., "Cargo") doing what he's doing, and he takes it as a challenge. And for me, that's the best part about Tulowitzki. He doesn't want anyone to be better than him on the other team, so why would he want anyone to be better than him on his own team? And when I say that, I mean it as a compliment. I love how competitive this guy is."
In Stark's Rockies-loaded piece, he also discusses super-sub Chris Nelson, Colorado's (and one of the league's) coldest hitter (Todd Helton, who before last night was 1-for-22 with 7 K's in September), and Ubaldo Jimenez, who hasn't allowed a home run at Coors Field since July 3rd - which equates to 185 consecutive batters faced without allowing a jack. He's only allowed four long balls at home for the entire season.
Cook believes he's done for rest of season - The Denver Post
In what shouldn't be surprising to anybody, Aaron Cook feels that his 2010 season is over. Jim Tracy and the Rockies have put up a front about a possible return for Cook before the end of the season, but just about everybody else has had their doubts about seeing him again this year. It isn't a huge blow to the Rockies' rotation at this point, as Jeff Francis and Esmil Rogers, who have both shown they can be every bit as (if not more) effective than Cook has been as a whole this season, are ready to step in and save the day. With that being said, Cookie looked very good - close to vintage, in fact - in his first two starts off the DL.
A couple more items after the jump...
Rockies | Huston Street regaining form - MLB Hot off the Wire
This has been one of the very underrated parts of the Rockies' success over the past couple of weeks. Since his gut-wrenching blown save in Arizona on August 20th in which he walked two batters and gave up two runs on two hits, Street has been a perfect 8-for-8 in converting save opportunities, and with the exception of a slight brain fart against the Dodgers during the last homestand, has been near-perfect in every other facet of pitching. He hasn't walked anybody (which is huge, considering how it seems every time he gives out a free pass, it comes back to hurt him) and has struck out ten in 11 innings, all while allowing just six hits since that fateful night in Phoenix.
Twitter / Barry Enright: Just got done running outs ...
It does not look like Barry Enright is a big fan of running at altitude.