Wednesday Rockpile: Offensive Fireworks Haven't Overcome Terrible Pitching

First of all, let me wish you a very happy 4th of July! Or if you are one of our visitors from a foreign land, happy Wednesday! Seriously, Wednesday is the worst day to have a paid holiday. Not complaining about paid holidays, just saying that if we could have celebrated the 4th on Friday the 6th this year I would have been fine with it. But I digress. In any case, if there are fireworks in your municipality, enjoy them!

Secondly, the Rockies will play their 81st game tonight -- if they win, they'll be on pace to only lose 98 games instead of 100! Okay, so I'd like to avoid 100 losses. It's cool that Colorado has never had a 100 loss season, and this season's squad doesn't really seem like it's bad enough to do that. After all, the offense is scoring at a pretty prolific rate -- 5 runs per game -- whcih is pretty good even at Coors.

Just as interesting to me is the fact that the Rockies have crossed that magic 4 run threshold in 49 games already, going 28-21 in those contests. Of course, that means when Colorado scores 3 runs or less, they've only won thrice all year (3-28) -- yesterday's 3-2 win looks all the more strange when viewed through that prism.

The problem, as you are no doubt aware, has been the fact that Colorado's pitching has allowed 4 or fewer runs in only 31 games. Did you know that the most common number of runs allowed by the Rockies this year is 7? They've done that 16 times! That's 20% of the time -- egads! The next most common run results are 3 & 4, which have both happened 9 times. When you factor in all the times Colorado has allowed more than 7 runs, the other team's fans are getting tacos an astonishing 45% of the time they play the Rockies (36 so far this year).

Colorado has scored 7 or more in 21 games so far, which is actually a pretty good pace. After all, the Rockies scored 7 or more 40 times last year, so we're right on schedule. Of course, last year the pitchers only allowed 7 or more 44 times the entire season, so this year's staff is going to blow past that mark.

Troy Renck lays out some stats that demonstrate how success with the 4 man rotation is possible. Basically, the pitching needs to be merely bad, not terrible.

Speaking of the rotation, Jeremy Guthrie's return to the starting role could be showcasing him for trade suitors before the trade deadline. At this point, it's probably for the best that Guthrie get out of here, for all parties involved.

Carlos Gonzalez is the underdog in the Home Run Derby, but I wouldn't be surprised to see him crush this field.

Finally, some good news on the pitch count front -- Jim Tracy is relaxing the 75 pitch limit somewhat due to the impressive performances of late from Jeff Francis, Christian Friedrich, and Drew Pomeranz.