rockies at mets 4-23 to 4-25

[RMF]

Hurdle is beaten by his favorite weapon the bunt. Somewhere Charlie Monfort is laughing and drinking and rubbing $100 bills all over his harem of prostitutes.

[BigRapidsJackass]

RMF, I spit out a swig of beer when I read that line ... good one.

Post-game Hurdle comments:

A squeeky voiced reporter (Renck) asks about as suck-upish question you'll ever hear: "Clint, your teams since you've been here have been known for their resiliency ... do you think this team can make it through this?"

WTF, Troy? "Resiliency?" As in, "they continue to lose games at roughly the same rate regardless of what happens early in the season?" I mean, exactly what is "resilient" here? Is it "resilient" of Brian Fuentes not to go Donnie Moore on us? For Clint not to resign? For Monfort not to fire him?

What exactly is wrong with our media? How cozy can you get with managment? This is in NEW FRICKIN' YORK, where the local press would rip the whole club 25 new ones if they lost a game like this. And in Denver we get the equivalent of "Hey, Clint, you're club really sucks, but do you think they can maintain a positive attitude about sucking?"

That's why I plunk down my 50 cents for the Denver Post. Nice work, Troy.

EDIT: I ran that Renck-Hurdle exchange back on Tivo just because I couldn't believe how stupid it was. Watch Renck print it in his write-up tomorrow. His nose is now so far up Hurdle's behind he can see the polyp where Ringolsby resides.

EDIT 2: Tim Ring is, on the other hand, probably about to get fired. The guy isn't mincing words. He just suggested that after Atlanta at home and then the Giants on the road, the Rockies could finish April ten games out. That is not far fetched by any means.

[hiaspire]

I don't know why people desperately need Tulo to be sent down. He was having some problems, took some time to work on them as so many others do (mentally and physically), and is going to put some of those adjustments into play now to see if things turn around for him. I think they are going to. If he doesn't start improving then they can send him down after that determination down the road a bit. As he showed tonight, it's certainly worth a try and there shouldn't be any urgency to remove a very talented asset from the big league club.

Tulo should have been the hero tonight coming back against Wagner. It was an excellent game. Tough to lose when an exciting win was well within their grasp, but a very good game otherwise.

Everybody is going to crap all over it as usual (yeah fans), but lots of positives coming out of it. Got to like Cook finally looking like his old self (not surprisingly once he got out of the NL West opponents). Tulo made some excellent plays back in action both at the plate and in the field. Rockies tonight didn't look all that different from the best team in the NL in a very entertaining low scoring game to watch. A good night for baseball and pretending that it's summer while sweeping up the snow.

[Roxpert]

Jackass, I just replayed it with my DVR, and you weren't kidding. Renck and Ringolsby aren't exactly throwing hardballs at 'ol Clint. Our hitters are a bunch of ballerinas, but the press covering them are total wussies.

[BigRapidsJackass]

It was a good game, Aspire. Very entertaining, tense, and ultimately infuriating.

Here's what I take away from it:

1. It is depressing that Endy Chavez, a backup, is actually better than any centerfielder on our club.

2. It is depressing that this club has 7 HRs in 21 games: on pace for a pathetic 54 HRs this year, and exactly half of what one guy has produced for the Yankees this year.

3. It is depressing that after all that tinkering with the bullpen and talk of how we need experienced bullpen pitchers, we are now at a point where there is exactly one bullpen pitcher who inspires any degree of confidence -- and that is NOT Brian Fuentes.

[Roxpert]

In fairness, Jackass, Fuentes had been on a bit of a roll lately, going into this game. He had retired 15 of 16 batters or some such. I still have confidence in Fuentes, even if he is occasionally prone to the untimely gopher ball.

Clearly, the Cooler wasn't too confident in him, pulling Fuentes for Affeldt in the 11th inning. Or maybe he just wanted to save his arm for the save opportunity tomorrow afternoon that will likely never come.

[BigRapidsJackass]

Tomorrow's box could be a real keeper:

Fogg 4.2 7H 5ER 2BB 1K 2HR
McClellan 1.0 2H 1ER 2BB 0K
Martin .1 1H 2ER 1BB 0K 1HR
Keppel 2.0 4H 3ER 1BB 1K 1HR

I hope I'm wrong about the results, but the names of the pitchers who will be going tomorrow are really beyond debate.

[hiaspire]

1. I've always liked Endy Chavez. I wish our archived boards were still up, as his name came up long ago under the younger alternatives to old stopgaps back in the day. I doubt he would look very good offensively as an everyday player (although has at times looked very good at AAA as such), and he really is more of a role player, but he was definitely very available to us a couple of years ago while he was moving from team to team and with us having a need for speedy defensive CFers. If not for the temporary frustration and april numbers bias, Taveras and him aren't all that different with similar games and I liked them both as cheap alternatives to stopgaps long ago.

2. Frustration with lack of HRs is understandable, but those things have a way of changing drastically during the season. They'll go on a power tear at some point to balance things out and will be okay with the pretty solid middle of the order bats IMO when we look back over months of data and not just weeks later in the season. April isn't a great power month for us historically.

3. The bullpen wasn't that bad and I thought pitched pretty well tonight. The Mets were probably more disappointing in the pen with their big gun blowing things. Fuentes has been going pretty well recently and did look very good tonight other than that one pitch. Same with most others like Corpas and Speier even I thought except for the issue with his shoe catching on the rubber for the balk. Odd things sometimes happen, but the bullpen can't be 100% perfect all the time and you need more than 1 run to win usually. They were pretty good and I think confidence in the pen should be growing these days with several guys stepping up.

[BigRapidsJackass]

Aspire, I'm still A Speier [hah! say it fast] fan.

It was an awfully tough situation for him tonight, and he basically got the job done other than that flukey balk. I hope he makes it into the late-innings mix.

[Dante Bichette]

Well I must admit, I didn't really feel like visiting this site tonight, but you guys had some hillarious posts. BigRapidsJackass, that post about Reneck and Hurdle is a classic. So, my spirits are high. Afterall, there is a lot to laugh about.

Sometimes all you can do is laugh. I mean, when you think about it, this team, the fearless skipper, management, and the local reporters are such a bunch of losers it is really funny, and I mean laugh out loud funny.

Losing on a walk, bunt, balk, bunt. That is really funny. But fear not, I saw Hurdle making lots of notes in his notebook in the dugout, so I am sure things will be turning around any day now.

Oh, and as Drew Goodman will tell you, at least 10 times a game, we are the most unlucky team in baseball, at least that's what he calls it. Very funny. That wildcard banner we used to have on the left field fence, Matt Holiday chasing a fly ball in heavy wind, Charlie Jones doing play by play, the announced attendance at most home games, Charlie Monfort addressing the media, trying to find a budweiser at Coors field, Don Baylor running out of bench players and using a pitcher hitter to pinch hit in the 95 playoffs, Brent Mayne taking the mound and winning a game, Eric Byrnes for Larry Bigbie, Larry Walker batting against Randy Johnson, all very funny.

And last but not least we have a freakin purple dinosaur as a mascot. Barnies twin brother, or maybe lover, whatever. That is beyond funny.

[TheIncredibleRox]

Originally Posted by BigRapidsJackass

... and can you believe they're running the "Fuentes saves everything" spot right now???

I was wondering when that was gonna happen (it had to, eventually). And how sad are those commercials that end with Matt Holliday saying "we are believers." His expression says theres an Ayatollah just off camera with an automatic weapon.

[DieHardRoxFan]

Hope springs eternal or in some cases hope springs delusional. It's only April and the Rockies haven't gone through their annual mid summer collapse that comes as sure as clockwork. The old cliche bad things happen to bad teams and good things happen to good teams rings true in the Rockies case. Since the Rockies are the only team in baseball that hasn't had a 5 game winning streak since 2004 getting on a roll may be unrealistic. The Rockies don't give access to media people who aren't suck ups. The manager for life is so pathetic I find myself mired in apathy about being critical of him. I'm sure the Monfort's would like to win just to be able to go out in public ,but alas, don't have a clue. The Cubs are the loveable losers. The Rockies are just laughable.

[RMF]

I think this team is filled with wuss's and excuse makers. When things go wrong people hit the DL and bench. Clint Hurdle is in the middle of a roster revolt. He's replacing bad starters with worse backups.

I watch the MLB online. I can tell you that opposing commentators are always taking shots at Hurdle. Vin Scully did it. The Mets guys are always after him. The Padres and D-Backs guys go after Hurdle. (Though Mark Grace has a boner for our young hitters and Manuel Corpas)

It's just embarassing that we can't get anything done at the big league level. We couldn't have expected any more of Holliday, Helton for the rest of the team to basically not show up is tough.

On the positive side there are some positional prospects that I'd like to see taken with a high pick in 08.

[RMF]

In the last two seasons Clint Hurdle has pointed the finger in every single direction. I hope some of the players start pointing the finger back. The only player I remember voicing displeasure with the club's level of talent was JJ.

In the world of baseball, managers are often the fall guys.

IMO that's one of their purposes. You fire the guy and give everyone else a clean slate. The Rockies have made the horrible mistake of assigning Hurlde some kind of reverence not earned or deserved. What has he done to secure his job on the field where it counts? Nothing... This is exactly the time when a manager should be fired. If the GM won't do it, fire him.

This tells the fans that ownership doesn't condone losing. What does our owner do? He hands the losers contract extensions.

[hiaspire]

The lineup is a little bit different today. The two heros from last night (Tulo and Chavez) are hitting #2 on both teams. Atkins hasn't been sharp and getting today off to go along with tomorrow's off-day to get an extended break and a chance to work on some things off-line.

I don't know if Tulo has the ability to be a patient #2 hitter right now (possibly down the line he could provide some good early pop there), but hopefully he continues to come back strong from his recharging to provide some early spark today.

Lots of talk today about head's hanging in disappointment. Shaking up the lineup a bit today was a good choice.

My gameday prediction is more aggressive baserunners out of the table-setters today with the momentary shift, and hopefully the bats cash them in.