Rockies bullpen gets rest after finale vs. Giants washed out

The Rockies will be in Arizona today to play the D'Backs for the first time in 2015, and their bullpen will be a little more rested thanks to the rain on Sunday that washed out the final game of the home stand against the Giants.

Before Sunday's rain, the Rockies were in the middle of a scheduled stretch of 13 consecutive games without a day off, and their bullpen was starting to feel the impacts. Here's the work the relief arms did over the last week at Coors:

This was a bad combination of events brewing. The Rockies got a disastrous two inning outing from Jorge De La Rosa in his season opener on Monday before rebounding nicely in his second start, then there was a couple of shortish outings that didn't allow the bullpen to completely refuel, and finally you had a hard fought extra innings game Saturday night.

If rain didn't wash out Sunday's game, there's a good chance the Rockies would have had to make even more roster moves to help the pen out. Now the Rockies get a bit of a breather before a scheduled off day on Thursday. This should allow Weiss to play his cards more aggressively over the next week, with both the bullpen and everyday players.

Of course, the rain isn't all good news for the Rockies. Sunday was supposed to be a day of celebration as the club celebrated the 20 year anniversary of Coors Field. Several former players made the trip to the ballpark for the weekend and didn't get to participate in the planned events.

There's also the fact that the Rockies were scheduled to miss Madison Bumgarner in this series against the Giants. Now that Sunday's game with Tim Lincecum as the scheduled opposing starter is gone, there's a chance the Rockies could get Bumgarner for an extra game. Right now though, we have no idea when that game is going to take place with no makeup date announced.

There's several common off days where it could be made up, but almost all of them paint a pretty rough scheduling stretch for one team or the other. Things like too many days in a row without an off day (in some cases it would be more than 20 days in a row for one team or the other which not supposed to happen without a team's consent), an unusual, out-of-the-way stop in the middle of a road trip, or a double header would put more stress on these pitching staffs than either team would like, but something along those lines almost certainly has to happen here.

Oddly, the least objectionable option to make this up may be in the near future on May 11th. It's not ideal, but looking at each team's schedule, it might be as good as it's going to get.

Rockies Links

David Martin wrote about the 20th anniversary of Coors Field over the weekend, and how it's become an important part of the Denver scene. Now an entire generation of kids have grown up watching the Rockies play at 20th & Blake.

Several Rockies read mean tweets directed at them over the weekend. The only problem with this video is that it's not longer.

The Rockies have come an incredibly long way in an incredibly short period of time when it comes to how they deal with the media, and several folks within the organization, new and old, deserve credit for this rapid turnaround. In particular, the club had been extremely accommodating to Purple Row this season with clubhouse access, and it's already led to some pieces we're very proud of as a community.

On Saturday, the Rockies were even kind enough to let us take over the team's official Twitter account. People noticed, and the folks over at The Good Phight (the Phillies SB Nation blog) lamented at how they wished the Phillies would handle things more like the Rockies in this department.

Nick Groke writes about the amazing Rockies infield defense. The term Coors Shield makes multiple appearances here, showing once again how far this Purple Row creation has spread.

Also from Groke, Carlos Gonzalez looks to get back in a groove. Cargo's had a rough slump since the opening series in Milwaukee, but he showed serious signs of breaking out in the Giants series this weekend with line drives to the opposite field and massive home run on Saturday night. Through Friday's game, Cargo and Tulo combined for just  a .675 OPS on the season. They both went deep on Saturday, and if this is a sign that they're both about to get going, we could be in for a fun couple of weeks. DJ LeMahieu will come back down to Earth soon, but these guys will more than pick up the slack if they get hot.

MLB Links

The most important thing to happen over the weekend were injuries to two top NL clubs. The Dodgers placed Yasiel Puig on the DL yesterday and are also awaiting more news on Brandon McCarthy who pulled himself from Saturday's game with elbow tightness. The initial MRI came back clean for McCarthy which is good news for the Dodgers, but if he has to miss a significant amount of time, then this team's rotation could be in for a turbulent few weeks. They're already down two starters, and Brett Anderson isn't one of them.

The Cardinals also suffered a significant loss over the weekend. Ace Adam Wainwright is now on the DL with an Achilles injury, and he could be out for the entire season depending on how today's tests go.