UPDATE: Turns out it's Eric Stults that's replacing Reynolds on the roster. Cole Garner remains in Colorado Springs.
After last night's five innings and a W, Greg Reynolds was sent back to Colorado Springs with a pat on the back for the rest he gave other parts of the Rockies rotation. In his place, outfielder Cole Garner is expected to be called up for his first big league cup of coffee. Garner, a seven year minor league veteran in the Rockies system, went to high school with Ian Stewart. The Rockies have needed a right handed bench bat capable of causing some damage besides Ryan Spilborghs, and Garner looks to be the best internal option for this role.
I usually don't link to Mark Kiszla's stuff, but I was piqued by the headline that he might actually be defending Rockies ownership for once. Well, not quite, he was just using an anti-Monfort letter to take a shot at Dan O'Dowd, which leaves me linking his piece anyway, because it's an interesting question of who actually should be held accountable for the Rockies disappointing season to date. First of all, I like to let the season play out. I feel that front offices should be measured after a year, not during as there's still a lot of baseball left. That said, 2010 was clearly a disappointment as well, and the team in 2011 is heading the same direction, so there's enough of a sample in a season and a half to say that yes, this team's mediocre, and yes, O'Dowd deserves some blame for that. Should the team not turn around, O'Dowd's consistent inability to fix the second base situation will be a big part of it.
Which is why so much is riding on the Mark Ellis trade, or a subsequent move if Ellis does not work out, and it's not the same low risk gamble that acquiring Jose Lopez was before the season started precisely because the Jose Lopez move proved so spectacularly disastrous.
The second point I'd like to bring up from the Kiszla is this idea that a sports franchise ownership making money is a terrible thing has to stop. No. An ownership taking team money, as in Los Angeles, is a terrible thing, but as long as a good portion of profit gets reinvested in the franchise or related activities (buying the Casper Ghosts, for instance,) I have no problems with an ownership having a profit motive and keeping a small portion for themselves. This is because the biggest return on investment for them would be to have a perpetual winning franchise, they could go the easy profit sharing route and strip the club, but since they're not doing this, I'm still fine with the direction that the Monforts are going.