Led by Tyler Anderson, the Colorado Rockies pitchers shut down the Texas Rangers yesterday. Anderson struck out the side in the first inning setting a tone that would carry through the rest of the game. Antonio Senzatela struck out four in his three full innings of work while surrendering only a single hit. In the eighth inning, Mike Dunn struck out the side to continue his strong spring work.
Trevor Story hit his third home run of the spring in the first inning driving in DJ LeMahieu who had reached on the first of his three singles. LeMahieu raised his spring batting average to an even .500 with 10 hits in his first 20 at bats.
For more information on the game check out the Rockies.com and Denver Post’s recaps
Story, LeMahieu thrive at plate against Rangers | Rockies.com
Rockies pitchers combine for 12 strikeouts, Trevor Story homers in win over Rangers | Denver Post
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Rockies view LeMahieu as elite defender | Rockies.com
The Rockies are discounting the declining defensive metrics that say LeMahieu is no longer a prime defensive second baseman. There is a legitimate debate about how effective the current batch of defensive metrics are. Thankfully Statcast is making consistent steps towards being able to effectively measure every defensive play and could give us the most accurate defensive metrics in the near future.
Projected 2017 Strengths of Schedule | Fangraphs
The Rockies sit right in the middle of the National in terms of strength of schedule using the preseason projections. However, the Rockies seem to be getting more love from analysts than they are from the projections and that could throw a wrench into these type of projects. Because of the length of the baseball schedule, good teams will have weak strength of schedules and bad teams will have hard schedules simply because they don’t play themselves.