Kuzul

These are desperate times at Coors Field. The Colorado Rockies have allowed more runs than any team in baseball. Consequently, they also have the highest team ERA in the majors.That pitching staff may well have driven manager Jim Tracy to madness. At the very least, it can't be said that he's not trying to be creative in fixing his team's massive pitching deficiencies. As reported by the Denver Post's Troy Renck, the Rockies announced that they'll be going to a four-man pitching rotation. Jeremy Guthrie—who's been abysmal in his past six appearances—is being moved to the bullpen, and the four remaining starters will be on a 75-pitch limit to compensate for one less day of rest. "I felt we had to do something non-conventional," Tracy told reporters. "I was given the opportunity to tweak this. We are going to see what transpires as we move forward."Well, this definitely qualifies as unconventional. The fact ...

The handshake deal. The discussion about the performance of the Colorado Rockies in the 2012 season keeps reverting to the handshake deal between Dan O'Dowd and Jim Tracy. Was it a clever strategy to help Tracy relax and manage some wins, or did O'Dowd really think Jim Tracy had shown enough to warrant an extension? As the Rockies sit at 13-21, fourth in the NL West, the question arises: When does the franchise make a change? Dan O' Dowd made some interesting comments today in the Denver Post about how he doesn't intend to make any changes to the current staff. While the comments should anger fans, it should be no shock that this is the mind set in the front office.Keep in mind that this comes from a man who told the current manager, Jim Tracy, that he can indefinitely be with the organization. While fans and analysts have ...

After a horrifying moment last season on August 5, 2011, when Juan Nicasio's neck was broken after being hit in the temple with a line drive by Ian Desmond of the Washington Nationals. Nicasio suffered a fractured skull and had bleeding on his brain from the impact of the liner. Team manager, Jim Tracy admires the resilient 25-year old: "To say he has courage … I don't know if that's a strong enough choice of words." On Sunday, Nicasio made a big impression on teammates and fans watching an intrasquad match where he pitched two innings. The Denver Post reported that: “He threw consistently at 93 to 95 mph (once hitting 97). Of his 35 pitches, 27 were strikes.”Nicasio didn’t give up a run, allowed just two hits and hit one batter. He had two strikeouts as well in the two innings. That’s a great sign of progress for Nicasio ...

View From the Rockpile: Musings From a Mile High Along the Journey to Rocktober There’s no bigger stage for a middle-market club than the sparkling new sandlot just a skip, hop and a seven-train jump from Broadway.  Do it here, and media, critics and fans will take notice.    America, meet the 2011 Colorado Rockies.   The Rockies entered this season demanding better from themselves away from the friendly confines of Coors Field.  Road warriors, they need not be; but 31-50 on the road (as they were in 2010), they cannot be, not if they aim to make their NL West championship dreams come true.   After taking three of four from the Pirates in PNC Park, the Rockies looked to continue to exorcise their road demons at Citi Field against a struggling New York Mets squad.    Yet, having lost eight straight series in the Big Apple and 22 out ...

Take off the purple-colored glasses for a minute. Forget about the magic of 2009. Forget about the past for a moment. The Rockies had climbed back into the game on Carlos Gonzalez's first career grand slam. With the score 8-6, Joe Beimel allowed Stephen Drew, a guy who seems to only hit against the Rockies, to hit a solo home run to right field to expand the lead to 9-6. Anyone who follows baseball knows that if there ever was a must-win for the Colorado Rockies, Thursday was it. Apparently Jim Tracy didn't get that memo. All of the talk recently has been about the Rockies' burned-out bullpen. Well, don't ask Huston Street and Rafael Betancourt if they are out of gas—they haven't pitched since Sunday. With the closer and setup man comfortably resting in the bullpens, newly acquired Octavio Dotel promptly served up a solo home run to Chris Young to open the bottom ...

It is September. Usually, that means fans of a team managed by Jim Tracy can let out a sigh of relief. That is because it means that Tracy can micromanage to his heart's content and still have enough players on the bench to make it work. He proved everyone wrong on Tuesday night in a pivotal game at Coors Field. It would be easy to blame Edgmer Escolona, the Rockies rookie pitcher who forgot to cover first base, for the loss. That mistake did cost the Rockies the game, as a sacrifice fly scored the winning run. However, look deeper and the blame lies with Tracy. Is the bullpen short on rest lately? Yes. Do some of the guys sitting out there need a night off? Absolutely. The bullpen has been taxed in recent days with the shortcomings of the starting pitching. On Tuesday, Jason Hammel gave up 10 hits and four ...

Hindsight is 20/20. It is easy to second guess a manager's decisions, but Jim Tracy makes it easy. The problem with being stubborn is that you are too stubborn to learn from your mistakes. From the looks of it, Tracy doesn't realize that a run counts the same whether it is scored in the first inning, fourth inning, or ninth inning. He thinks that only the runs in the ninth count. On Tuesday in the Colorado Rockies 5-2 loss to the San Francisco Giants Tracy did it again. Down 2-1 in the top of the seventh inning, the Rockies manager sent starting pitcher Esmil Rogers to the plate to hit. With Rogers' pitch count barely over 60, there was some reasoning. The problem was not that Rogers shouldn't have remained in the game to pitch, the problem was that the Rockies needed runs badly and they were running out of outs. Rogers ended up ...

When the Colorado Rockies fired their manager Clint Hurdle last season, the Rockies were 18-28, and had lost seven of their last 10. The Rockies named Jim Tracy as interim manager and he "turned around" the Rockies, guiding the team to a 74-42 record (.638) the rest of the way and into the 2009 NL playoffs. It is ironic that Hurdle was replaced midseason, because that is how Hurdle got his first managerial job. Buddy Bell was fired 22 games into the 2002 season, and Hurdle was Bell's replacement. Tracy replaced Hurdle at a point where the Rockies were nine games back of the NL Wild Card, but ended up winning the Wild Card by five games. What really happened though was Tracy did nothing to help his team win, except to let them play ball. Tracy had the benefit that their best player, Troy Tulowitzki, started hitting, as did the rest of the lineup. ...

The Rockies walked off with a win on Sunday. Their fans walked off sick to their stomachs. It was, without a doubt, the worst walk-off victory in the history of the Colorado Rockies. If the Rockies would have ended up on the wrong end of the score on Sunday, there would be only one person to blame. No, not Huston Street. Not Clint Barmes, who looked like a little leaguer chasing after an infield fly ball that nearly cost the Rockies the game. The person to blame for Sunday's meltdown at Coors Field is Jim Tracy. The reigning National League Manager of the Year has made some interesting decisions throughout the course of the year. However, it is hard to question the man who led the Rockies to a record setting comeback after taking over in late May of 2009. Despite his success in the past, Sunday's mistakes cannot be ignored. Tracy's first mistake? The starting ...

In the mile-high city, there is an outfielder having the best baseball season you haven't heard about.  His name is Carlos Gonzalez, and he has been a menace to National League pitching this season. Gonzalez, 24, is a tall, lean lefty with a sweet swing.  Originally from Venezuela, Gonzalez is in his second full year with the Colorado Rockies. He came to the Rockies in the Winter of 2008 when the Rockies dealt Matt Holliday to the Oakland A's.  Gonzalez has made A's general manager Bill Beane regret this trade.  In 2009, Gonzalez spent the first two months of the season dominating the Pacific Coast League for the Rockies Triple-A affiliate in Colorado Springs.  On May 29, the Rockies fired manager Clint Hurdle and replaced him with Jim Tracy. A week later, Gonzalez got the call to the majors. Gonzalez struggled at first, posting a .607 OPS in June. He quickly improved that to an ...