Thank God it's (not) Friday. With last night's somewhat-embarrassing home loss to the Pirates, the Rockies fell to 1-4 on Fridays. Luckily, they're still 15-4 every other day of the week.
Recapping the best (Colorado Rockies, Joey Votto) and the worst (Minnesota Twins) of April - ESPN
Jayson Stark has the Rockies for his team of the month for April. The Rockies will try to improve to 17-8 tonight against the Bucs (weather permitting), which would leave them with the best record in baseball if Cleveland and Philadelphia lose. As long as they don't have to play on Fridays (or get more than, like, two hits), the Rox will generally be in pretty good shape. That thing in parentheses could be asking for a lot, though.
There are a few numbers here to consider. First, the Rockies' hitters have the third-highest strikeout rate in the NL at 24.6% (only behind the Pirates and Padres - teams which aren't considered to be contenders). However, they boast the NL's best walk rate at 10.3%. So, it's clear that any deficiency in batting average (which, by the way, is .236 - good for 11th in the NL) is made up by the fact that they can find other ways to get on base. However, when they face pitchers with good command (which last night's starter Kevin Correia definitely had), the ability to reach base via anything but a hit goes out the window, and the possibility of scoring runs goes with it.
In short, the Rockies' bats are going to need to come alive when they begin to play teams that have above-average pitching. They have shown the ability to do so (this game and this game come to mind), but they need to do it more consistently. Otherwise, they'll be knocked off of their pedestal in a hurry.
A couple more links after the jump...
Rogers' next start pushed back to May 7 | ColoradoRockies.com: News
Esmil Rogers will be available for long relief for a few days, as he won't start again until a week from today in San Francisco. The Rockies are short a swingman after sending Clay Mortensen to Colorado Springs. Rogers has done well in the past in a bullpen role, so we'll have to see how this plays out. Of course, in a perfect scenario, he won't even have to be used.