Saturday Rockpile: Additional Musings On Nate Schierholtz As Well As Rockies' Offense

Schierholtz's single leads Phillies over Rockies, 3-2 - The Denver Post
You know, I was sort of relieved when the Giants traded Nate Schierholtz away. Sure, he's not a great (or even good, really) player, but he always had a flair for pissing me off, especially due to the fact that about a third of his career home runs have come against the Rockies, and seemingly most of them traveled greater than 450 feet.

Granted, the guy the Giants received in return for Schierholtz killed the Rox as well, as Hunter Pence's only hit since joining San Francisco (seems that way, right?) was a game-winning blast off of Rafael Betancourt.

Anyway, the point to all of this nonsense is that Schierholtz bit the Rockies in the behind again on Friday, driving home the game-winning run in the bottom of the ninth inning. It ruined another mostly well-pitched game from Colorado's staff, although this time it was the starting pitcher who carried the load. Jeff Francis was magnificent, but as was the case with the Rockies' final two games in Atlanta, the team left with nothing to show for it.

That brings me to the Road Offense (TM). Ordinarily, there has to be a culprit when a team goes 36 consecutive innings without allowing an earned run but only gets one win to show for it, and in this case, it's the Rockies' bats. They, themselves, have only scored two runs in the last 27 innings, while hitting a collective .173/.243/.204 in that span. Of course, they have faced some pretty solid pitching, so I'm willing to at least try to look the other way, but for the most part, guys are showing bad approaches, and as such, are having really terrible at-bats.

Stephen Strasburg Has Been Shut Down, Says Davey Johnson - Baseball Nation
Stephen Strasburg's much-talked about innings limit has been reached, and the Nationals are holding to their promise, as they are shelving the phenom pitcher for the rest of the season.

Improving McCarthy remains in serious condition | oaklandathletics.com: News
Brandon McCarthy is still in the hospital while continuing to recover from a head injury caused by a line drive off the bat of Erick Aybar during Wednesday's game against the Angels. He has been able to move around and eat normally, but can't really talk much at this point due to the pain that it causes.