Did the Rockies do the right thing by getting Livan Hernandez off waivers?
Charlie Hepp, the Rockies' assistant director of media relations, was looking for a bright spot on a rainy night at Coors Field.
"We just picked up Livan (Hernandez) and we've already picked up a half game on Arizona," he said.
The Rockies were denied an opportunity to pick up a full game Wednesday.
While Arizona was losing 2-0 to Pittsburgh, the Rockies' game against Washington was rained out, Colorado's second home postponement of the season and the 27th home postponement in franchise history - the 24th since Coors Field opened in 1995.
So the Rockies, who acquired Hernandez on waivers from Minnesota on Wednesday afternoon, are 7 1/2 games behind the National League West-leading Diamondbacks with 47 games to play and five games behind second-place Los Angeles, which lost at St. Louis.
The rainout will be made up as part of a traditional doubleheader today, when the teams were scheduled to play the final game of their four-game series. Game 1 will start at 1:05 p.m., with the second game starting 25 minutes after the conclusion of the first. Neither game will be televised.
Fans holding tickets for today's game will be admitted to both games.
Fans who had tickets for Wednesday can exchange those tickets for a similarly priced ticket for any game left on the Rockies schedule - including today's doubleheader - or request a refund.
Ticket exchanges can be made at Coors Field and all Rockies Dugout Stores. Refunds can be applied only at the Coors Field ticket office or by mailing the unused tickets to the Colorado Rockies Ticket Office, 2001 Blake St., Denver, CO 80205.
Jeff Francis, who came off the disabled list Wednesday and was scheduled to start the rainout for the Rockies, will go in Game 1 today, and Ubaldo Jimenez will pitch Game 2. Washington will start Jason Bergmann in Game 1 and Odalis Perez, originally scheduled to start Wednesday, in Game 2.
With Monday's off day on the schedule, the delay of the start for Francis won't affect the Rockies' plans to start Francis, Jimenez and Aaron Cook in next week's three-game series against Arizona at Coors Field.
The only question is whether the Rockies will flip Francis and Jimenez, starting Jimenez on four days' rest Tuesday and giving Francis an extra day between starts by using him Wednesday. Francis, who last started in a major league game June 28, was sidelined with inflammation in his left shoulder.
The doubleheader will be only the fourth traditional doubleheader at Coors Field. The other 17 were day-night split doubleheaders, which allowed the Rockies to charge separate admissions for each game.
The Rockies split a traditional doubleheader with Pittsburgh at Coors Field on May 13, 2004, but swept the next two - against Arizona on Sept. 23, 2004, and Florida on Aug. 8, 2005.
In the only Coors Field doubleheader since those, the Rockies swept a day-night matchup with the Dodgers on Sept. 18 last season, the second and third victories of an 11-game winning streak that sparked the Rockies' late-season surge to win the first NL pennant in franchise history.
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August 7, 2008
8:08 a.m.
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SLoganSt writes:
A traditional doubleheader? Baseball all day? Sounds like fun to me. Wish I could go.