Taco, Taco, Taco, Taco

…and another taco!

aww crap, beat me to it.

I had the update up and ready to go.

Why do they not have Taco Bell in New Zealand!? Perhaps I’ll have to hand-make my own tacos and just *pretend* they were four for a dollar. Either way, the past four days of delicious Rockies baseball might just be satisfaction enough.

…is it just me, or does that Taco look oddly like Clay Zavada?

Non-taco time, but still another delicious outcome.

I have a couple of non-Rockies baseball questions for you guys, since I think you’re both in DC– 1) Did you go see Randy Johnson win 300 last week? 2) How about this Strasburg kid maybe coming to the Nats? Any thoughts?

Was actually wondering the thing about ManBird’s 300th, myself. How many games do you guys get to? I’m going to assume you’ll be at the Rockies-Nats series in August (if not, WHY!?). Are you guys going to be able to get to any games in CO this year?

Unfortunately I did not make it out for ManBird’s 300th.

We certainly plan to be at the Rox-Nats games in August.

Two things about Strasburg interest me. First is the Nats actually drafting him and dealing with Scott Boras trying to sign him. Boras represented their top pick last year and he will be back in this year’s draft after they couldn’t reach an agreement and he sat out the season. I think that will not be the case this year. Too much hype with this kid for them to let him go. I’m also interested to see how fast they try to push him through the system. I do think that ready or not (most likely not) he’ll get a taste of the bigs this season just to draw people out to watch the worst team in baseball, even if just for one game. I don’t expect him up until September, so the Rox won’t have to deal with his 101mph fastball.

Of all the major sports, I feel baseball is the hardest to figure out who will/will not have success at the major league level. I try not to read too much into the hype of top prospects and I think the signing bonuses they are commanding these days are absolutely absurd. To me, a guy has to prove he is able to do something before you pay him $10,000,000 to do it.

With all that said, Strasburg is considered by some to be the best pitching prospect ever. His college career speaks for itself. As I see it, there are only two potential hurdles that can get in his way. The first is injury, which can derail any pro career. The second is his ability to handle losing. He has dominated hitters for his entire life and never had to deal with the fristration of losing. I’m very interested to see how he handles himself after a string of a few rough outings, which even the best pitchers experience. Plus, the Nats bullpen are likely to blow a game here and there, costing him some wins. I expect he’ll experience a whole lot of frustration early in his pro career and how he’s able to handle that is going to play a big part in how successful he can become in the bigs and how soon he will see that success. But the simple fact is, that boy can pitch.

five wins in a row!! GO ROCKIES! for the first time (in my opinion) this season…the offense, defense, starting pitching and bullpen are all working efficiently together! instead of pitching being on and offense off….both are on and killin!

Out of the cellar! 4th place and only 2 back from San Diego. Time to make our move. If they can keep putting all of the pieces together, they could find themselves sitting in 2nd place (still pretty far behind the Dodgers)when they go visit Matthew Thomas Holliday in Oakland at the end of the month.

for when we visit holliday in oakland, are you going to end that podcast with last years ending line?

I don’t think so. Maybe Ted will do it just to make me look bad because I said he wouldn’t, but I don’t think he would do that to Todd.

Things are starting to get…interesting. Is this the longest winning streak since…gasp…2007?

Indeed it is! They had a few 5-game streaks last year, but no 6-game runs. It sort of feels nice.

Just 6 games ago, the Rox were 20-32. That record matches the 2008 Rockies through 52 games. Well you can throw that comparison out the window after these past 6 games. After 6 straight wins, the Rox are 26-32 compared to the 2008 team that dropped 6 straight to fall to 20-38.

If this keeps up, they’ll be buyers in the trade market this year. They really need to pick up that Holliday character from Oakland if they want to be contenders. If there’s one thing this team needs, it’s an outfielder.

loving this win streak! turning out to be a great road trip! lets keep it up when they get home! i want to be at these games!

How about a repeat of ‘07 where they only lose one game the rest of the season. Just start the streak a little earlier this year. They can take 103 of the next 104, right?

i think its very possible!!! that would be a sick record! and this time…we’ll take the world series in a sweep!

I know, right, Kylie? I was just telling my brother (another avid Rockies fan like ourselves) that this streak is the spark that will take us straight into a World Series Championship! Of course, in the back of my mind, I’m still a little hesitant. I love our Rockies, but I’m afraid they’re going to wake-up from this total winning awesomeness. They’ll be completely stunned, and then go on a 20-game losing streak or something. That thought is always in the back of my mind, softly humming: “How much longer can this last?” Does anybody share these same worries?

oh ya…every game im like…well i guess they eventually need to end the streak, so maybe they wont win today…but then they win! so hopefully this can last, and its fine to lose games but hopefully no losing streaks! if we can play like we have, and only lose a few here and there…we have a serious chance of a playoff run. but for now: GO ROCKIES! LETS SWEEP THE BREWERS!

Obviously their streak is going to end at some point, probably in the not too distant future. It has to. But the streak ending shouldn’t be a concern. My concern is how the team is going to react if they lose 2 or 3 in a row. We’ve already seen earlier this season that when things weren’t going their way the team looked somewhat lifeless at bat, on the field and on the mound at various times. Now we see that when things are going well, there seems to be this intensity and focus on the field that we haven’t seen since the 2007 World Series run. The level of exectuion is up and the mistakes are down (but not out). Maybe it was the Torrealba incident that helped put things in perspective. Maybe it was the firing of Hurdle and Tracy taking over. Maybe it’s just a group of talented players that finally got tired of grossly underachieving. Whatever the reason for the positive change, lets just hope they can keep the current mindset for the remainder of this season and beyond. Nothing would be more frustrating than for the Rockies to show us what they are capable of (as they are currently doing) and then slipping back into their old, losing ways.

thats a good point. i have a little more confidence in them with this win streak though. this has given them a lot of confidence and they are playing together like a team. if they do slip into a losing streak…i think it will be easier to get out, because they know they can and they know they can play well and get themselves out of a slump. before this week, when they would struggle they couldnt count on much of a winning streak, but now they know its possible to pick yourself up out of a slump and get back to dominating

Yeah, I’m really hoping that this series in Milwaukee was a confidence booster for the entire club. It was nice to see the bats so active in the late innings in those blowout wins in StL, but the team really showed us something inspiring against the Brewers. Suddenly, the Rockies are the team with a tough-as-nails bullpen and a lineup that can come from behind in the clutch. A month ago, that team was always the opponent. Now that the players know they can win games like this against tough opponents, maybe they’ll be less shaky next time they’re in a tight game in the late innings.

Wait wait wait Ted… so you’re saying the key to all of this might be *confidence*? Where the hell did you get an idea like that!?

P.S. I agree. I really think the three games in Milwaukee spoke volumes, because it seems the difference between terrible teams and great teams are how well they do in close games.