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FeedFlirting with the World Series
Can the Rockies go all the way this year?
Rob Hammer
When Troy Tulowitzki danced and sang joyously to the lyrics of R. Kelly’s “I’m a Flirt,” Champagne bottle in hand, as the Colorado Rockies celebrated the start of their World Series run in 2007, it seemed life couldn’t get any better.
But a new decade has brought even higher hopes. Some predict the Rockies will actually overtake the Los Angeles Dodgers this year to win the club’s first-ever division title.
Not bad for a team that started off 2009 with the second-worst record in baseball, changed managers, and overcame the loss of two stars (Matt Holliday to the St. Louis Cardinals and Jeff Francis to injury). On May 29, the Rocks were 15½ games out of the playoff race but ended up clinching the wild card by a four-game margin and finishing just three games behind the Dodgers. It was the second time in three years they made the playoffs.
The Rockies did it with a starting rotation that produced 94 quality starts and a shutdown bullpen (Manny Corpas, Rafael Betancourt, Franklin Morales, Huston Street, etc.) that returns for 2010. In fact, this is a team that (aside from letting Garrett Atkins and Yorvit Torrealba leave) returns almost entirely intact — a big reason why a first-ever division title could be in reach.
“They came from nowhere in ’07 and really didn’t know what they had,” says Thomas Harding, who covers the Rockies for MLB.com. “Now they have a pretty good idea that they can win the division.”
Indeed, there’s a sense that Colorado has built something sustainable says Tony Jackson, who has followed the Dodgers since 2004 and now covers them for ESPNLosAngeles.com. “They [the Rockies] have a playoff team full of players in their prime,” Jackson adds. “Unless the Dodgers bolster their starting rotation, they’re going to be hard-pressed to keep up.”
Dodgers manager Joe Torre admits as much. “This division will be very tough,” he says. “Colorado, from where they started [last year] and where they got to, they took it to us. That was quite a feather in [Rockies manager Jim] Tracy’s cap right there. That club completely turned it around.”
Though the Rockies lost 15-game winner Jason Marquis to the Washington Nationals via free agency, Francis appears healed from shoulder surgery and ready to take his place. The hope is Francis can return to the form that saw him win 20 games and strike out 282 in 2006–2007.
The Rockies still have one of the best infields in baseball, anchored by short-stop Tulowitzki and Todd Helton at first, and a solid outfield where the biggest question for National League Manager of the Year Tracy is figuring out how to get everybody some playing time.
“It’s exciting to know we are a team that’s going to compete for the [National League] West and have a chance of getting back to the playoffs and hopefully win the Series,” second baseman Clint Barmes said, before heading to Spring Training in Tucson. “Settling back down and playing the way this team was capable showed a lot last year. I definitely believe there was something left on the plate [as Tracy said]. I think everybody in this clubhouse believes and feels the same way.”
Dexter Fowler (center field), Carlos Gonzalez (left field), and Brad Hawpe (right field) are penciled in as the starters. But Seth Smith (15 HR, 55 RBI), Eric Young Jr. (he can play second, third, and left), and the wildly popular Ryan Spilborghs (who can forget his 14th-inning walk-off grand slam August 24 against the Giants?) also will push for at-bats and starts.
“The dynamic that we have is such versatility and being able to move people around and keeping people fresh,” Tracy said at baseball’s winter meetings.
On the mound, the team should be in good standing with 15-game winner Ubaldo Jimenez back in his ace role. Tracy hopes even more improvement will come with better fastball control. “The biggest sticking point with Ubaldo was getting him started and trying to stay away from the 30-pitch first inning,” Tracy says. “He could make it easier on himself and, quite frankly, maybe ensure himself the opportunity of finishing his own games. But you can’t do that when you’re teetering on 105, 108 pitches after 5 or 52⁄3 [innings]. I want to see that from Ubaldo and from Jorge.”
Jorge would be Jorge De La Rosa, who became the first pitcher in major league history to open a season with six consecutive losses and then go on to win 16 games.
De La Rosa was on the mound September 16 when the Rockies edged the San Francisco Giants, bumping their wild card lead to 3½ games instead of seeing it dwindle to a game and a half.
“We have depth,” says Tracy, who helped turn around the club last year by instilling a play-to-win rather than a play-not-to-lose approach. “I’m not telling you something I didn’t tell these players after [losing] Game 4 of the Division Series [to Philadelphia]. The idea is not to disappear. The idea is to continue to push the envelope. It’s hard to win a World Series ... but to get to a World Series and have a chance to win it, you have to knock on the door of opportunity as many times as you possibly can.”
