Jimenez, Fuentes falter, but Rockies focus on positives

By Tracy Ringolsby, Rocky Mountain News

Originally published 03:44 p.m., April 20, 2008
Updated 09:55 a.m., April 21, 2008

HOUSTON — What is different about these Rockies from their predecessors is their disappointments don't turn into disasters.

While the Astros rallying to pull out a 6-4 victory at the expense of reliable reliever Brian Fuentes on Sunday afternoon left them frustrated, it was just for a moment.

"We've been very good at putting one bad day behind us and starting fresh the next day," Rockies first baseman Todd Helton said. "We understand it's a long year. We understand there will be some bumps in the road."

So the Rockies didn't dwell on Kazuo Matsui, the only member of their starting lineup last year who didn't return, keying a three- run Astros eighth inning by slapping a two-run single off Fuentes into left field. Instead, they were eager to get back to Coors Field tonight and start a two-game series against Philadelphia, the team they swept in three games in the National League Division Series in October.

The Rockies know it will be a challenge. Arizona, the team they swept in the NL Championship Series in October, already has been to Coors Field this year, and it swept the Rockies.

The Rockies also know they welcome a brief stay at home - back-to-back two-game series with the Phillies and Cubs - in a stretch of the schedule that has them on the road for 15 out of 19 games.

"It's going to be nice to get home for a couple of days," manager Clint Hurdle said.

The Rockies face the Phillies coming off a 5-4 trip, focusing on having won five of the final seven games in the journey that took them to Phoenix, San Diego and Houston. And after a 1-5 beginning to 2008, they have won eight of their past 12 games and climbed from the bottom of the NL West into second place.

"We've definitely played better in the last week (than earlier in the season) and we have to show up (tonight) and keep getting better," Helton said.

There aren't even media demands for boycotts of the franchise, like there were after 18 games a year ago, when the Rockies rallied to win the first NL pennant in franchise history.

Already this season, the Rockies have bounced back from being swept in the three-game series against Arizona to sweep their next series, a three-gamer with Atlanta at Coors Field. And after starting this trip with back- to-back losses in Arizona, they pounded the Diamondbacks 13-5 in the finale. They then took two out of three in San Diego, including a 2-1, 22-inning survival in the series finale, and at Minute Maid Park, where they had gone 5-20 in the eight previous seasons and never previously had won a series.

"When you look at five out of seven, we have improved from where we were," Hurdle said. "We've definitely tightened things up, but we've got more to do and we know it."

The quick fix on the bucket list figures to be finding consistency with an offense that failed to get the hit that could blow the game open Sunday. The Rockies had only three hits in 11 at-bats with runners in scoring position.

The bigger issue involves the maturation of starting pitcher Ubaldo Jimenez, who on Sunday, for the second time on the trip, breezed through early innings only to have the game slip away.

After retiring the first two batters in the fourth inning, Jimenez held a 2-0 lead. He had allowed only one baserunner - Carlos Lee, who singled with one out in the second. He needed only 28 pitches, 23 of which were strikes, to get the first 11 outs of the game.

"I was executing pitches, that's why it worked so well," Jimenez said.

When Jimenez departed with two out in the sixth, he was on the short end of a 3-2 score. He had faced 16 batters for the final six outs he registered and needed 62 pitches, only 27 of which were strikes.

"I think it is focus, and after focus comes mechanics," Jimenez said of a meltdown similar to his fifth-inning fade Tuesday in San Diego.

"Sometimes I try to do too much."

And when he does, so little happens.

"He has to find a way to control the adrenaline, to make the pitches," Hurdle said. "That's the challenge you face in finishing a guy off at this level. He can get away with blowing people away (in the minor leagues). Now he's in a unique environment. You can't re-create (the big leagues). We have to find a way to polish him up."

It's a challenge the Rockies look forward to handling, rather than a disappointment they plan to dwell on.

FIRST PITCH

NUMBERS GAME

.230average with runners in scoring position for the Rockies this season, 25th in the major leagues. They were 11-for-57 (.193) with runners in scoring position in splitting the six games on their only homestand this season.

FAMILIAR FACE

Kazuo Matsui is the only member of the Rockies' 2007 National League pennant-winning lineup that didn't return for this season. He signed a free-agent contract with Houston, which offered him three years guaranteed, one more than the Rockies. He gave the Rockies a reminder of the way he could battle in at-bats when he sparked the Astros' game-winning eighth-inning rally.

He flipped a 3-2 pitch from Brian Fuentes into left field, driving in two runs for a 5-4 Astros lead, then scored the final run, when Miguel Tejada greeted reliever Ryan Speier with a double.

"Those players I used to play with, and I was really looking forward to this," said Matsui, who came off the disabled list to make his season debut against the Rockies. He had been 2-for-10 in the series before the game-winning hit.

HE SAID IT

"(Clint) Barmes was the only guy who played every inning the four previous games, and I felt he needed a rest. (Garrett) Atkins will be next. He only played 13 of the 22 innings (in the game in San Diego)."

Clint Hurdle, Rockies manager, on returning Jayson Nix to the lineup at second base Sunday.

Tracy Ringolsby

• April 21, 2008

  12:26 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  Hutch writes:

  I all my years of following baseball -- and that includes a couple of decades watching Triple A baseball in Denver -- I cannot recall watching a pitcher with Ubaldo's habit of losing his command so quickly and completely. The guy is absolutely rolling yesterday with two down in the fourth inning, and yet I'm on pins and needles knowing that the wheels will be coming off at any moment. It's impossible not to love the guy's talent, but turning him into a reliable starter is going to be a painful and time-consuming challenge for the Rockies. Hopefully it won't cost them too many games, although in fairness to Ubaldo you'd have to say that Fuentes is the guy who let it get away yesterday.

  If the Rox were going to lose yesterday, I'm glad that Kaz got the game-winning hit for two reasons. First, obviously, he seemed like nothing but a class act during his time in Colorado. Second, it's not a bad thing for Rox ownership to be reminded that saving money has competitive ramifications. And speaking of Kaz, either the humidity has done wonders for his complexion, or he's had some botox treatments. Dude looks ten years younger.