Boogie with Stu

I like what Buster Olney has to say:
http://espn.go.com/sportsnation/post/_/id/4294902/buster-olney#comment

Ted, I expect that next week you will have information on Seth Smith, actor from Home Alone 3.

Interesting find, Scott. I’m not entirely sure this actor isn’t the very same Seth Smith who plays (awesomely) for the Rockies. Both were born in 1982 and played college football. If they are the same guy, it probably just got a lot easier to link Rockies players to Kevin Bacon. More importantly, it would put Todd Helton 2 degrees from Robin Williams, Christopher Lloyd, and (gasp) Michael Jackson!

I would very much hope that if a Rockies player was in Home Alone 3 that I would know about it. But if it is him, that would put Todd Helton on the Rockies with Seth Smith who was in Jack with Adam Zolotin who was on my high school wrestling team. I believe that puts me 3 degrees from rolling around on a mat with Todd Helton. Oh, sweet dreams for me tonight!

Wow, Olney is exactly the sort of guy I’d figure would still be dismissing the Rockies. But I like what he has to say too. I have to figure if the Rox can win tomorrow night, and then lay the hurt on the D’backs and Nats like they should, they officially become buyers (if they’re not already there). I’d be interested to hear who you guys think is out there that Rockies should/could pick up. Middle relief is always tough to come by, I don’t have a good sense of who is out there.

Ok serious talk aside, OMG Jason Marquis, OMG OMG OMFG. Despite the effusive praise I had for Ubaldo for his 127 pitch (and a butcher boy!) effort, this has to be the best performance by Rockies pitcher all year. Probably one of the best pitching performances in all of baseball this season ( I can’t remember any no-nos to this point). I think if tonight’s effort shows anything, it’s that the best performances don’t require a bunch of strikeouts. You don’t get a complete game shutout on 86 pitches with a ton of strikeouts. Billingsley was awesome, but all those strikeouts take a lot of pitches, and all the sudden you’re over a hundred and the other team’s pitcher drives in 2 runs without even having to trick you into balking with an ungranted timeout call.

Oh snap, that sneaky Wolf got a balk the cheeky, irritating way. Reminded me very much of a balk I witnessed in New York last September (and managed to get on film, oddly), when Alex Rodriguez stood up like he had called time, when he really hadn’t, drawing a balk. Really, let’s be honest with ourselves, when is “it reminded me of something A-Rod did” ever a good/classy thing?

I was watching the post-game fun on FSN tonight, and one thing I noticed was the fact that everyone interviewed/reporting listens to Rockiescast. Marquis talked about how he has confidence in his infielders, Hawpe talked about how the team as a whole has confidence, That Dude Who Wears A Cowboy Hat All The Time Who I Would Pay Good Money To See Rope A Steer said that this game was, most importantly, a confidence-builder, and one of the FSN Guys (Helmer?) yammered on (well, I have to say, I quite like him) about confidence for a while. Even Tracy threw it in to his post-game comments. Scott, Ted, can you guys start talking about lederhosen a lot in your ‘casts? I’d love to hear that start to get bandied about the Rockies clubhouse, and I know you two have the power and influence to make it happen.

However, I need to put it out there that I, for one, was utterly disappointed by Marquis tonight. He gave up TWO HITS! That wasn’t even the best game in the Rockies organization tonight: http://tinyurl.com/hynick. Marquis is a slacker and needs to pick up the pace for his next outing, clearly.

P.S. One more request: I would like to hear a discussion about how you guys think they’re shaping up now in terms of the trade deadline, and then taking that a step further with discussion of, if you think they might make any trades, what sorts of players are out there and available. I was saying tonight to someone that I predict, especially if they win tomorrow, that they’re going to be searching for some middle relief (before reading these comments, oddly). Do you agree? If so, who is out there that they could get? Would they have to give up someone (NOT THE BEARD!) to do so? If you think something else might happen, who/what might go/happen?

P.P.S. My Oliver Stone (aka, don’t take this too seriously… really) moment of the night: I’ve noticed in games on FSN recently that the commentators are referring to Our Man Spilly more and more as “Ryan” or “Spilborghs” instead of “Spilly”, as they seemed to used to do. I think this might be because they’ve been paid off by the front office to refer to him in a less-affectionate way, thus subtly making it easier for the fans to say goodbye to him. Thoughts, Scott and/or Ted?

Oof, I’m tired. Time to pop on the iPod, load up the ol’ Rockiescast, and hit the hay.

It’s true Marquis is no Brandon Hynick, but with his win last night he is now tied for tops in the bigs with 10. Not only that, but he separates himself from Manuel Corpas and Chuck McElroy for sole posession of #42 on the Rox all-time wins list. One more win ties him with Captain Crazy, Julian Tavarez.

I knew Manny Corpas stole that win against Seattle for a reason, he’s just greedy, and has a grudge against Marquis. Stay strong, Jason!

I was a little saddened by the Rockies loss today. Losing 1-0 sucks. Hammel threw a gem, but we couldn’t provide an ounce of run support. But, on the other hand, Hammel didn’t lose control, giving up 20 hits and 10 runs or something else devasting like that. It was bittersweet.

In fact, this whole series has been bittersweet for me. The Dodgers are a stinky good team, and the fact that we didn’t lose in dramatic fashion (aka, 11-2, 7-0, and 6-4), means we’ve made good progress. Plus our bullpen preformed beautifully, and our starting pitching was stellar. We just couldn’t hit the ball off those darn Dodger’s pitchers. Or if we did hit the ball, many times we couldn’t bring the guys around to home. That was disappointing. But, it still plain sucked that we lost the series like this.

So while we sort-of proved ourselves this series, and came away with some stuff to smile about, the Dodgers still prevailed… I was hoping for a slightly better series. But, all things considered, it really didn’t turn out too bad. The Dodgers are the best team in the NL… and to tie them with runs scored 5-5 isn’t terribly awful. Therefore, I’m hoping that this series won’t hurt us in the long run, and that we’ll go winning 6-in-a-row against the D-backs and Nats… both teams that aren’t doing well right now. (yay for us!)

So this is my take on the Dodgers-Rockies series. I’ll look forward to hearing what Scott and Ted have to say about things.

Wait Julia Taverez used to play the for the Rockies? God, my whole life has been a sham.

or even Julian?

Cap’n crazy is right, did he ever roll the ball to the first basemen on come-backers with the Rockies? Cuz he did that a lot in Boston.

i agree with abreana. we are making progress against the dodgers, we just couldnt prevail. our pitching is just astounding me lately, and hopefully we can keep it up. the nationals, diamondbacks, and braves im pretty confident we can beat,,,easily. at least i hope. rockies, stay awesome! ted and scott, keep up the great work and stay awesome!

Three cheers for the Colorado Rockies!
(aka the Awesome-est baseball team)

Three cheers for cheap tacos!
(mmm-mmm… anybody else missing these?)

And… Three cheers for Rockiescast! (or, we could just say, “three cheers for our sleep-aid”)

One, um, acronym?

DLR!!

The Rox starters have been crazy ridiculous. Keep it going Cookie Monster!

Happy 4th everyone!! May this be a Rockies winner.