Friday Rockpile: Rockies Following Up Series Wins; Woody Paige Answers Questions

Last night's 9-7 victory over the Dodgers was downright encouraging. Colorado tagged Clayton Kershaw for 6 runs, another 2 off of Scott Elbert, and an insurance run against Josh Lindblom. Troy Tulowitzki, Todd Helton, and Carlos Gonzalez combined to reach base in 8 of their 15 opportunities. Overall, the Rockies had 16 baserunners and scored 9 runs.

Juan Nicasio got roughed up a bit and turned in his first not-quality start, and Matt Reynolds finally proved he was human, but as far as downsides go, I'll take those rough spots on a night when the Rockies' bats made a rare appearance.

My immediate thought after the game was "Man, it's nice to see the Rockies actually follow up a series win with a win in the opener of the next series". Add another win against the Dodgers, and we'll have what a lot of hardcore SABR analysts refer to as a "winning streak".

But that got me thinking, "When was the last time the Rockies actually followed up a series win with another win?" For some reason I felt like it'd been SOOOOO LONG since they'd done that.

So I did the research:

Turns out they've actually been alright this season following a series win, 5-3 overall.

Saddest part of that: They've only won 8 series.

What we've learned from that: Hope you're facing the Dodgers after winning a series.

Here's to hoping that this isn't another one of those offensive production skewing games that comes with the caveat of "well, take that one game against the Dodgers out and the Rockies are batting like .055 over the past month" or whatever.

Final thought about the game: That one jump throw Tulo made to throw out Casey Blake was pretty intense. Loved it.

Woody's Mailbag: Rockies will show patience with hitting coach Lansford - The Denver Post

There is so much interesting stuff to cover today that Jim Armstrong wrote about yesterday, but for some reason I decided to write about Woody Paige answering questions. Well, enjoy.

I normally don't mind Woody Paige. He's undoubtedly a Broncos First kind of Denver Sportswriter. Oftentimes, when he writes about the Rockies, I roll my eyes. He has his buffoon moments, but they're typically fun and well-meaning in nature (and by buffoon moments, I mean "have you ever watched Around the Horn?") He writes to the casual Rockies fan, and in general, just a lot of casual sports fans in general. Which is great, the casual sports fan responds well to Woody.

That all being said, I just can't help but wonder what the lay fan is thinking with some of the questions that they ask Woody in his mailbags (as opposed to the generally decent questions in Renck's mailbags and the mailbags Ringolsby used to take in the Rocky).

The first question is about Lansford (you can guess what it was asking), and Woody basically says "give him a season and if things are still awful, THEN you can start boiling the tar". Very fair and reasonable answer from a writer who gets a lot of his fame from being very excitable (or at least appearing as such).

The second question made my brain bleed. The words "the team's bad pitching" and "pitching staff melts down" were the focal points of this particular question. 

Well, WJ, chew on this:

Out of the 5 longest-lasting members of the Rockies' rotation in 2011, meaning Ubaldo Jimenez, Jason Hammel, Jhoulys Chacin, Jorge De La Rosa, and Clay Mortensen, here is an exhaustive list of them that have an ERA over 4:

• Ubaldo Jimenez

To follow that up, here is a similarly exhaustive list of those that have an xFIP over 4:

• Jason Hammel
• Clay Mortensen

Out of the bullpen, here are the same exhaustive lists:

• ERA over 4:
  • Greg Reynolds (6.2IP of relief)
  • Matt Daley (6.0IP)
  • Esmil Rogers (1.0IP of relief)
• xFIP over 4:
  • Greg Reynolds
  • Rex Brothers (all of 3 appearances)

Mr WJ wants to know where the accountability is for Bob Apodaca's clearly terrible job at running the 8th best pitching staff (per fWAR, 10th per xFIP) in the majors and the 2nd best pitching staff (per fWAR) since 2008 is.

Really? 

I'll give Mr WJ the benefit of the doubt here, he's probably referring to Felipe Paulino and just kind of extending that to the rest of the staff. That or pitching wins or something.

I kind of have to tip my hat ever so slightly to Woody here. He picked a dumb question and answered it pretty well, citing injury and Ubaldo's struggles and the fact that it is a good pitching staff regardless of a few rough spots.

That's another thing: I never really see the Denver writers talk down to the fans through whatever medium. We saw Renck get a little frustrated on Twitter after the seven millionth question about Joe Beimel, and understandably so. But they don't talk to fans like they're on a pedestal of baseball enlightenment, bowing to grant the Philistines a boon by responding to their tweets, like some sportswriters do.

So if you're reading this, Denver Sports Writers (because come on, you know you love reading Purple Row), thanks for being patient with the fickle Denver Sports market. Hit me up sometime, I'll buy you a beer (because you see I have this Groupon to the Braun's over by Coors Field and...).