Troy Tulowitzki has been in a historic zone for the Colorado Rockies.
Carlos Gonzalez has had an unbelievable year for the Colorado Rockies, but despite hitting a ridiculous .467 this month, he isn’t even the most publicized player on his terrific team.
That title belongs to Troy Tulowitzki. The 25-year-old shortstop broke his wrist in mid-June and had to miss a month’s worth of games due to a broken wrist. It was a crushing blow for the Rockies, a team that needed his bat in their lineup if they wanted to keep up with the San Francisco Giants and San Diego Padres in the hotly contested National League West.
Not surprisingly, they struggled without him, going 18-17 in his absence to fall eight games behind the then division-leading Padres. He returned and immediately caught fire, teaming up with Gonzalez to pull their team back into the pennant race.
In August, Tulo (as he is called) hit .351 with a .417 on-base percentage. Colorado went a respectable 15-12 in the month but, despite his and Gonzalez’s efforts, the team found itself seven games back entering September.
Then all hell broke loose. Gonzalez has been scorching hot, but Tulo has been something else entirely. How he has played is really hard to describe. When he first came up with the Rockies and took the majors by storm, I saw a lot of Derek Jeter in him. Now, he’s become a reincarnation of former Colorado great Larry Walker. Or, better yet, a comparison that manager Jim Tracy liked, Barry Bonds (without the steroids, of course).
Tracy, from an article by MLB.com’s Evan Dellich:
“That’s a pretty good correlation,” said Tracy, who managed the Dodgers when Bonds was breaking records with the Giants. “I wore some of that during my time. We went to Spring Training in 2002, and I remember starting the first three games of the season against the Giants here in Dodger Stadium. I think [Bonds] hit five in the first two days. And I just decided we’ll hang some more rubber chickens up on the wall. That’s enough, I’m convinced. That’s a great correlation.”
The correlation’s birth began on September 3rd. Tulo hit a third-inning two-run homer off San Diego Padres’ rookie Cory Leubke to propel the Rockies to their first of ten straight victories. He socked another blast two nights later, a third the following night, and then five in a three-game span from September 8-10th. Eight homers in seven games, in seven days. That was just the beginning.
He came back to earth momentarily, going 1-8 in the first two games of a series against the Padres but then heated back up again, nailing a three-run shot in an eventual loss to the Rockies’ division rival. Then he had another stretch of five homers in three nights, including two in a win over the Padres in which he drove in seven and two more tonight in a drubbing of the Los Angeles Dodgers. His 2010 collection of multi-homer games, four, has come in the last ten games, and overall he has amassed fourteen homers in his past 15 contests, becoming just the third player in major league history to hit that many over that span of games. Fourteen!
More from Tracy, following their latest win:
“I don’t have words to describe what we’re seeing from Troy Tulowitzki. It’s one thing to be hot. It’s another thing to be in the zone like this guy is. But he has that type of mentality, and he loves this time of the year, going back to 2007 when he was just a kid. He’s still at a very ripe age where he’s at right now.”
In those fifteen games, Tulo hit well near .400, and the Rockies have been as hot as his bat, having won 13 of 17 games in 18 days. And in the month, to go with the fourteen longballs hit, he has driven in 33 runs, one shy of tying Matt Holiday’s team record for September. As Dellich points out, the next highest RBI total in the majors is 17, notched by Boston Red Sox Victor Martinez, Philadelphia’s Chase Utley, and Holliday, who is now with the St. Louis Cardinals. The next highest home-run total is the six hit by Florida Marlins rookie Mike Stanton. Tulo’s on another planet.
What’s really incredible about Tulo’s numbers this month is that there are still eleven games to be played in it. Eleven. Who knows what happens from here on out, if 20 homers and 40 RBI can be attained by the man who sits second in the National League in batting average behind Gonzalez, hitting .327. But it’s hard to see him or his team, which sits just a game behind the Padres, cooling off.
“This stretch, this is something I’ll always remember,” Tulowitzki said. “It could get a little better, but at the same time, I might not play better my entire career. So it’s something I’ll always remember. But for right now, I’m not done with this, so might as well try to keep on riding it out as long as I can.”
It’s hard to believe doing more than he did over that stretch, but Gonzalez, who has been on base for many of his blasts, hopes his incredible and historic month continues, if nothing else than to keep his legs fresh. “When I’m on base, I’m like, ‘OK, get ready, ’cause this guy’s going to hit it far,’” Gonzalez said. “Maybe off the wall so I can score. He’s keeping it easy for me. I don’t need to run so hard.”
Fourteen homers in the past 15 games by Tulo tells me all CarGo will need to do is lightly jog from here on out, which would clearly suit him just fine.
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