Rox Talk - Week 14

The Week That Was

A 5-1 week against the Cardinals and Padres. The Rox currently stand at 49-39. Two games back from division leading San Diego in second place. Currently 31-16 at home and 18-23 on the road, the Rox have outscored its opponents 430-385 (expected wins is 48 versus historical wins at 41). On pace for 90 wins with 792 runs scored and 709 runs against. Playoff indicator (Runs scored/Runs Against ratio) is 1.12 (>1.16 indicates high playoff potential).

At the All Star Break, the Rox sit at 49 - 39. A nice July run has put the Rox right on the heels of Padres for the division lead. Had it not been for a late inning bullpen meltdown, the Rox could have been tied with the Padres for the lead at 50 wins. As a fan this season, it has been a bit maddening. We have seen so many individual highlights but we have yet to see the team breakout and just hit and pitch. This latest winning streak has seen the offense breakout of its funk and yet the pitching has disintegrated.

Since Game 67 (35-32), the Rox have seen the projected runs allowed grow from 619 to 709 in 21 games. In that same stretch runs scored has only gone from 730 to 792. The bullpen is obviously tired. This time last year they had pitched only 257.2 innings while this year they have gone 275.1 innings. With Morales and Corpas already in the doghouse, Daley injured, Belisle seeing a ton of innings already, it might make sense for O'Dowd to find that seventh inning specialist from the American League to come in and give some late inning relief. Again I think it will be a quiet trade deadline for our Rox as we really don't have a real deficiency assuming Tulo can come back sooner than later. This will allow Barmes to slink back to second. With de la Rosa back in the fold the Rox are basically getting a new starter. All in all I think what we see on the field now will take us to the playoffs.

Short post this week (All Star Writing Break) and just a quick shutout to Ubaldo Jimenez and Troy Tulowitzki for their All Star nods. Plus for all those Pirate fans out there who think their team will never be good again well just think a Colorado pitcher is starting in the All Star Game!If that can happen anything in baseball can happen! What an achievement. Let's hope U-Ball wows like his hero Pedro...

Interesting to note the offensive all stars haven't done much while pitching has done pretty well. An instance that pitching does beat hitting?