Saturday, August 27, 2011

Lackluster Recrap: Back to reality

Well that should be pretty much empty out the 2011 hopewagon for good. I know some fans were ready to (or already had started to) buy this team's playoff chances after the strong homestand, but reality has settled in once again with the Rockies back on the west coast. 

Dodgers 7, Rockies 6 in 11 (boxscore)

Even the best Rockies teams struggle on this west coast swings. There should be little question how a not good Rockies team will do.

That's the bad news. Here's some good news that's also depressing news. When the Rockies two legitamite superstars are rolling, this offense is just one consistently productive and impactful bat away from being unstoppable.

Todd Helton has been good, but he doesn't fit that description anymore. That guy should have been Ian Stewart, or could have been Chris Iannetta,but they fell short. Could have been Michael Young, but that was never very realistic.

It's just so frustrating to watch (in today's case listen to) Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez playing out of their minds at the same time, and not getting any sort of help.

Lackluster Recrap: Balk, balk, puke

Dodgers 6, Rockies 1 (boxscore)

Let's just cut to the chase.

Were the two balks called in the 7th inning legitimate?

To the letter of the law, yes they were. Any type of flinch, movement, awkwardness is going to be called. Meant or not, those are all in some way or another a method of deceiving the runner

However, when left open for interpretation by the umpires, you'd hope they would be smart enough to understand Esmil Rogers had no intention whatsoever to deceive a baserunner (no chance in Hell with Bob Davidson). The baserunner was actually deceiving Rogers, which is perfectly within the rules, but what a pain in the ass for a pitcher to have to divide his attention like that. I guess that's his problem for loading the bases.

It's also Rogers' problem for not staying composed and finishing the inning. He got beat by Justin freaking Sellers. That can't happen.

But up to that point he had his best outing of the season by a country mile, so hats off for that.

The Matt Reynolds balk was an easy call. No problems there.