Four Team Race

The division race in the National League West is one of the most interesting and entertaining at this point in the season and promises to be through the remainder. At 48-46 and only 5 ½ games back of division leader Los Angeles, the Colorado Rockies are intent on playing a major role.

After dropping 8 games at the end of June, the Rockies have gone 10-4 since, thrusting themselves back into the NL West picture. They defeated the Pittsburgh Pirates 5-3 on Wednesday on the back of Jeff Francis who threw down another strong outing.

Francis went 7, allowing only two runs on six hits with 6 k’s for good measure. Francis also helped out on offense, knocking in Troy Tulowitzki in the 3rd to tie the game up at one. He had hit a bit of a rough patch before the All-Star break and in his first start after so maybe this effort will help get him back on track.

The Rockies real strength though is their offense and their big-time hitters came through again for manager Clint Hurdle. Against the offensively poor Pirates, the Rockies needed only 5 runs today. After the RBI single from Francis, a 2 run homer by Brad Hawpe and a 2 run homer by Todd Helton was all Francis, Jorge Julio and Manual Corpas needed to shut the door and send the Pirates home with their sixth loss in a row, the longest current streak after the A’s snapped their dreadful 8 game slide.

Pittsburgh is just scuffling right now and they can’t seem to produce anything beyond 3 runs, but then the few times that they do? Well, their pitching staff lets them down.

Despite having a very good season, Wednesday was not starter Ian Snell’s day. He gave up two home runs, pushing his season’s total to 15, and got little help from his teammates. After the game, Snell was very adamant about the Rockies stealing signs and even threatened retaliation the next time the two teams meet, which will take place in Colorado in late August.

While not an advocate of sign stealing, I do believe it is a part of the game and pitchers just need to deal with it and compensate in other ways. Getting angry, rather than adjusting your stuff or talking to the catcher about it is stupid and foolhardy. This should make the showdown in the Rockies quite interesting though if Snell is indeed involved in the four game set.