“You know they’re going to hit.”
Well, to be honest, we didn’t, but suddenly the Colorado offense has come-alive, a 13-3 drubbing of a weary and listless Los Angeles Dodgers squad the latest evidence. The Rockies have produced 53 runs on 70 hits starting with Monday’s double-header sweep of Houston, winning all 5 games, rising to seven under .500 and moving to 9 1/2 games behind Division leading LA, which is working its way through its first rough stretch of 2012.
It didn’t appear a high-scoring contest would develop early, with tough Dodgers’ left-hander Chris Capuano on the mound and the Rockies’ Josh Outman working out of trouble in the first before disposing of LA 1-2-3 in the second. But in the bottom of the second Colorado logged two strange ones to move into an early lead. Right-fielder Michael Cuddyer led-off the inning with a ground ball to Ivan DeJesus, at 3rd for the Dodgers, and reached as DeJesus’ throw pulled 1st baseman Scott Van Slyke, in for Rockies killer James Loney, off the bag. Todd Helton and Jordan Pacheco each made out on fly balls, Cuddyer moving first to second, then to third, bringing Colorado catcher Wilin Rosario to the plate. Rosario walked, then with DJ Le Mahieu stepping up, took-off for second base. LA catcher Matt Treanor pump-faked to second, then let fly an extraordinarily wild throw to third, over the head and 10 feet to DeJesus’ left. Dodgers left-fielder Alex Castellanos was pulled way over toward center-field with Le Mahieu at bat and the throw rolled nearly to the wall, scoring Cuddyer and Rosario, flying all the way home from first and giving the Rockies a 2-0 lead.
The teams went scoreless in the third, then LA took one back in the top of the fourth. The Rockies shifted into a Chinese water-torture offense, getting one back in the bottom of the inning, then one in the fifth, four in the sixth, three in the seventh and two, on back-to-back solo shots by Chris Nelson, pinch hitting for Carlos Gonzalez, and Cuddyer.
Outman went 3 1/3 scoreless innings, using 55 pitches and striking out five, and gave way to Carlos Torres, who allowed two runs on three hits with three walks over two innings. Adam Attavino, providing further evidence Rockies GM Dan O’Dude is the best in the game, got the win, going 1 2/3 and striking-out three. Matt Belisle gave up a run on two hits in the eighth, and thrill-a-minute right-hander Esmil Rogers worked a scoreless ninth.
Colorado’s hitting continued relentless, as it has all week. Dexter Fowler was 3 for 5 and drove-in two. Marco Scutaro, Cargo, and Cuddyer were all 2 for 4 with RBIs. Helton went 2 for 3. Pacheco extended his current hitting streak to five. Rosario scored three and drove in three, two on a sixth-inning homer. Los Angeles’ defense didn’t hurt the Rockies’ attack, committing three additional throwing errors on top of the Treanor air-mail, sleepy after arriving at their Denver hotel just prior to 5 am earlier in the day.
The Rockies will try to make it six-straight tomorrow afternoon, with Juan Nicasio facing LA’s Aaron Harang. First pitch is at 2:10 MDT, TV on Root, radio 850 am KOA.
Colorado Aims to Extend Streak, Keep Climbing
Outman Takes Mound Against Tough Lefty Capuano
The Rockies face a reeling and weary Los Angeles Dodgers squad tonight at Coors Field as Josh Outman (0-1, 9.64) makes his first start of 2012 against the Division Leaders’ Chris Capuano (7-1, 2.14) in a battle of left-handers. Outman is taking Jamie Moyer’s spot in the Colorado rotation after the 49 year-old was designated for assignment on Wednesday. 8-7 with a 3.78 ERA in 25 career starts, Outman is expected to be limited to 50 pitches in the contest.
Capuano is on his way to a career year, his best an 18-12, 3.99 season in 2005 for the Milwaukee Brewers. Capuano is 5-5 lifetime against the Rockies with a 3.44 ERA. He stifled Colorado on four hits and one run over seven innings in Los Angeles on May 11. He leads a lineup that is without MVP candidate Matt Kemp and Rockies killer James Loney:
| CF Tony Gwinn 3B Ivan DeJesus RF Andre Ethier 2B Jerry Hairston, Jr 1B Scott Van Slyke LF Alex Castellanos C Matt Treanor SS Dee Gordan P Chris Capuano |
CF Dexter Fowler SS Mario Scutaro LF Carlos Gonzalez RF Michael Cuddyer 1B Todd Helton 3B Jordan Pacheco C Wilin Rosario 2B DJ LeMahieu P Josh Outman |
Five minutes late tonight. Couldn’t find the lineups (got the trick now). I suck.
No Chat tonight unless Jared sweeps in again. Go Rockies.
Jeem, great job filling in. Besides, the last time I was on the chat was our last loss prior to the Astros series…I’ll stay out of the chat and take one (or hopefully many) for the team!
Go Rockies!
Thnks for filling in Jeem!
Outman did great.
Offense getting some help from the sun and a bunch of LA minor leaguers.
Sorry guys, chat live. Jeem, keep forgetting to send you the code.
Is this considered a quality start by our starting pitcher Jolosdam Outrezvino?
I was chatting and all of sudden it disappeared. Did the same thing last night but then reappeared.
Can’t stand the Dodgers and in most respects the Rockies are a classier organization. But not in the TV announcers. Vin Scully vs. the clowns we have.
Was at the game. Now that was fun! Good timely hitting. Not bad pitching. Best part was slapping around the Dodgers!
Hate the Dodgers so any win against them is good,but giving them a butt kickin’ is great.Thing is,I didn’t recognize anybody playing for them except Either,and Gordon.Wow,they must really have the injury bug.Good.
After some consideration,and realization that I’m about to set myself up for more heartbreak,I submit the following thoughts.IF[big IF],we could win the next two vs.LA,it could turn this whole thing around.Yes,I’ve called for everyone to be fired,Elway for GM,and Tebow to join the rotation,but hope springs eternal redux.A sweep of the Dodgers would put us only 71/2 GB and certainly at least marginally in the hunt.It would mean we had made up 7 full games in only seven days! It simply does not get better than that,and more than I, for one, could have hoped for.Even splitting the next two leaves us in single digits behind,albeit by 1/2 game.Of course if we go back to 5 hits/2runs on the road,I’ll quickly jump off the purple bandwagon and renew my call of:”OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!”
fun write up Jeem. I hope this team doesn’t go down from 10 runs a game to 2 on the road. But I suspect they might.
Thanks Prog. Been cleaning up some typos + other writing screw-ups the last 15 minutes here. Don’t know what caused the double image, but that is fixed, too.
Realizing here I had some great lines in-mind to lampoon Jamie Wright (“what humidor?”), but forgot them.
Got the info from Jaredean on setting up chat today, including the special code you use to make it mess-up on Bill’s computer. Hope it works.
Expecting any team to continue on a run production like the Rockies are doing right now might be a little much. It would be great if they could. The starters really need the help.
I was at the game – what a great night! Coors Field at its best. Three Rox homeruns, great hitting all around. Outman looked terrific. Torres is very Betancourt-esque (takes forever between pitches). Even Esmil was impressive. Dodgers had their Sunday lineup playing so we’ll see what happens in the next two games. I watched Tulo in the dugout with binoculars and he looked sullen and pouty – didn’t interact with anyone. Remind me why is he considered the leader of this team??
It was fun being there but I think everyone needs to be mindful of exactly which Dodger team we are facing right now. Outman did look good and I wish he could have got the win. Fact is though … he didn’t face the real Dodgers and didn’t make multiple trips thru their lineup.
Honestly, based on these next two matchups and the offensive numbers the Rockies are putting up, I will be disappointed if we don’t sweep the Dodgers. I was totally dejected not that long ago and didn’t see any hope for the Rockies. Not with only 12 games remaining with the Dodgers. It is critical we take advantage of the situation and sweep them now.
Yeah too bad we have to play games away from Coors Field. Although this win streak has been fun to watch I’m not fooled. I’ve seen this team do this way too much! Kick butt at home and then get shutout on the next roadtrip.
I’m not fooled either but this is way better than seeing terrible ball played like all of May. I didn’t even want to go to a game until this week! We’re only a half game back from the Dbacks. It would be nice to move into third place before we play them Monday.
Yeah it’s a lot more fun watching them play good ball but for me it’s so hard to get excited because you know what’s coming on the next roadtrip. A lot of 1 run, 2 run games. We’re being teased right now and this home stand isn’t helping Tracy get fired! Shoot!!!
I’m guessing that today we might play our Sunday lineup. As it’s a day game after a night game. Giambi and Nieves in. Nice to think of a sweep but lets not get ahead of ourselves. We have to win today before we have a chance for a sweep
What If…..it’s tough to be mindful of reality, and reality, in baseball, is don’t count on anything. It’s why we love the game. Everybody’s gonna win and lose 60 games and what happens in the remaining 40+/- determines champions and bums.
I have talked about the All Star Game pitching rotation strategy before. Starters and first relievers for 3 IP each then the committee to close it out. That’s what we saw, basically, last night. In Coors Field, that may work. Of course, you’d have to continue it on the road because you can’t throw the rotation out of balance with two different strategies. But…I’d be interested in seeing if it could work.
Watching from my sofa last night, by the sixth inning the swagger in the dugout was quite apparent. The young guys were all walking taller. That’s a good sign. I want to see them keep it up. We’re fortunate we didn’t have to face the better part of Bums’ rotation even tho we’ve done well recently against Kershaw. We always hear about how contagious good hitting is and the team appears quite infected.