Sunday, September 11, 2011

Rock Solid Recap: Poised Pomeranz wins MLB debut

Alright, so maybe Alex White hasn't taken the Rocky Mountain region by storm yet, but I'd say Mr. Drew Pomeranz made enough of an impact in his debut to make us forget that for a few days. Pomeranz was absolutely sensational, controlling the game for all 63 of his pitches, and never finding himself in any real legitimate danger.

Rockies 4, Reds 1 (boxscore)

A man of few words, Todd Helton summed up Pomeranz's debut about as well I could in 500.... (via @TroyRenck on Twitter)

"A lot of poise. He had a presence"

Boy did he. In his five innings, Pomeranz walked two, but only allowed two hits. One of which was clean single up the middle, and the other deflecting off Kevin Kouzmanoff's glove. Honestly, when you look at the defensive alignment behind him -- no Tulo, no CarGo, no Helton, no Ellis -- the outing becomes even that more impressive.

And you know what makes it even better? The offense scraped together a couple runs, and Drew Pomeranz get the win!

The whole game was a lot of fun to watch, which is very rare for the 2011 Rockies. And I think we can apply the cliche that it's only going to get better when big #47 is on the hill.

How about this for a tag team. When Pomeranz got in range of his pitch limit in the 5th and had to tag out, it was Jason Hammel who got the call in the 'pen. All Hammel did was pitch the fingal four innings, allowing only a Joey Votto solo home run, to collect his third career save.

Gotta love September baseball.

Rock Solid Recap: Too hot for television

You know, it's pretty much impossible to analyze games you can't see.

That was the case on Saturday, as the Rockies were outhomered by Cincinnati 5-4, but amazingly won the game...

Rockies 12, Reds 7 (boxscore)

Listen, all I can tell you is Alex White is struggling mightily to get his sinker down in the zone. It seemed like every home run Cincinnati hit, one of the radio guys described it as a pitch that flattened out belt high and screamed to be parked in the seats. These are professional hitters in the Reds lineup, so the results are not surprising.

Interestingly enough, for the first time since White debuted with the Rockies, we heard word (from Jim Armstrong on Twitter) about the finger injury that sidelined him for three months not being completely healthy. I don't know if that's true, if that's positive spin coming from somewhere, or even pure speculation, but a guy struggling with his grip would certainly have trouble getting his ball to move and locate correctly.

That said, if there is truth to that, then shut him down. What's the benefit to anyone to pitching a 22-year-old that's not healthy or ready? I don't get it.