Sunday Rockpile: Injury Fear Mongering and Solid Defense Dominate Rockies' Opening Series

Colorado Rockies' Ubaldo Jimenez: Poor outing due to cut cuticle on thumb - ESPN
This was discussed at length in the comments of yesterday's Rockpile, but since we haven't "officially" addressed it, here you go. A lot of folks were worried that there was something more to Ubaldo Jimenez's lackluster opening day performance, and they were indeed correct. Ubaldo has a cracked cuticle that supposedly affected his performance and was the reason why he was only able to top out at 93 MPH - about 6 MPH slower than what we've seen in the past. Troy Renck isn't completely optimistic in his article detailing the situation, but Jimenez thinks that, with an off day tomorrow, he'll be able to bounce back and make his next start. Jim Tracy, however, says the Rockies won't hesitate to skip said start if the injury isn't fully healed. This may be the best strategy, even with the added rotation discomfort that the next topic provided last night...

Arizona Diamondbacks vs. Colorado Rockies - Recap - April 02, 2011 - ESPN
In addition to Ubaldo Jimenez's opening day finger issues, the Rockies are now dealing with a similar situation with their number two starter, as Jorge De La Rosa exited after 5.1 dominant innings with a blood blister. While the injury was seemingly minor in nature, it also had to have been affecting DLR enough for Jim Tracy and Keith Dugger to notice something from the dugout and subsequently pull him from the game. The good news is that Tracy doesn't feel the injury is significant enough to have a chance of affecting Jorge's next start. Even still, it is now completely obvious that the Rockies need to hire some sort of manicurist to keep these guys' hands in tip-top shape. In the meantime, let's hope that Jhoulys Chacin doesn't exit tonight's game early with a debilitating hangnail or something of that ilk.

Armstrong: Rockies' "D" steals show - The Denver Post
Make no mistake about it - the biggest reason the Rockies were able to get on the board in the wins column last night was because of their stellar defense. There were several highlight-reel plays - Carlos Gonzalez's diving catch, Seth Smith's wall-crashing grab, and great plays on infield shots by Ian Stewart and Troy Tulowitzki, just to name a few - and almost another one in the ninth had Jose Lopez been able to come up with Justin Upton's scorcher up the middle in the ninth inning on which Lopez got significant leather. There are also some notes on Jim Tracy, the Lineup Juggler as well as scouts' impressions of Ubaldo's opening day gaffe.