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De La Rosa stays hot, but Dodgers cool off streaking Rockies

By Tracy Ringolsby, Rocky Mountain News

Published August 21, 2008 at 3:38 p.m.

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The key . . .

Moment: After Derek Lowe walked Jeff Baker with one out in the seventh, lefty Hong-Chih Kuo came on in relief. He struck out Troy Tulowitzki and then gave up a double to Clint Barmes, putting Rockies on second and third with one out. Kuo escaped when pinch-hitter Willy Taveras popped up on the first pitch he was thrown.

Player: Dodgers starting pitcher Derek Lowe allowed one run and four hits in 6 1/3 innings, earning his 10th victory of the season. He has won at least 10 games for six consecutive seasons. He is 4-2 with a 2.41 ERA in six career starts against the Rockies at Dodger Stadium compared to 2-4 with a 6.23 ERA in eight starts at Coors Field. After Clint Barmes led off the game with a single and stole second, eventually scoring on a Matt Holliday sacrifice fly, Lowe did not allow a Rockies player in scoring position with less than two outs.

Stat: 5 wins for the Rockies in the six-game road trip, equaling the second best multi-city trip in franchise history. The Rockies went 6-0 on a trip to San Diego and Los Angeles last September. They were 5-1 in road trips to Pittsburgh and Philadelphia in August of 2000, San Diego and Arizona in April of 2006, and Arizona and San Francisco in May of 2007.

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LOS ANGELES — While the Rockies are looking for another late-season miracle to salvage this season, they also are keeping their eye on the future.

And even in a 3-1 loss to the Dodgers on Thursday afternoon that denied the Rockies their second unbeaten trip in franchise history, the club had to like what it saw from left- hander Jorge De La Rosa.

With Aaron Cook enjoying an All-Star season, Ubaldo Jimenez having taken charge to become a potentially dominating right-hander, and Jeff Francis responding to a stint on the disabled list to regain the big-pitch ability that keyed equaling a franchise-record 17 wins last season, De La Rosa has given the Rockies a reason to feel they might have a fourth piece for their five-man rotation in 2009.

"You are talking power arms," Rockies manager Clint Hurdle said. "There is a power sinker (Cook), power fastball (Jimenez), a power change-up (Francis) and a power slider (De La Rosa). The two left-handers (Francis and De La Rosa) are very different. There's no problem with them back to back."

De La Rosa is not just some cute and clever left-hander. At the age of 27, he has a fastball that consistently will hit in the 93- to 95-mph range, complemented by a devastating slider. Most importantly, since the All-Star break, De La Rosa has begun to show an ability to control his emotions, which has allowed him to control the games he pitches.

"It has never been about his ability," pitching coach Bob Apodaca said. "It has been a matter of consistency, of him harnessing his emotions."

So far, so good.

He took the loss against the Dodgers despite allowing only two runs, one of which was unearned, in his six innings. He threw 83 pitches, 52 for strikes, a marked improvement from his early erratic outings with the Rockies immediately after a May acquisition from Kansas City.

De La Rosa said the efforts of Ron Svetich, a performance enhancement coach with the Rockies, have been critical. "He gave me some ways to stay calm. Everybody always told me I needed to stay calm, but now I'm learning how to do it," De La Rosa said.

It's as simple as 1-2-3.

"He told me when I need to relax, I count to 10," De La Rosa said. "It keeps me from getting in a hurry."

With the Rockies limited to a first-inning run by Derek Lowe - Matt Holliday's sacrifice fly scored Clint Barmes, who opened the game with a single and stole second - the Dodgers were able to rally and snap a five- game Rockies winning streak that began with a weekend sweep in Washington and then back-to-back wins against the Dodgers.

De La Rosa was the victim of an unearned run in the fourth when Manny Ramirez led off with a groundball that Ian Stewart couldn't handle. James Loney singled Ramirez home. De La Rosa then gave up a two-out run in the fifth when Matt Kemp doubled and scored on Andre Ethier's ensuing single. Loney led off the seventh with a home run off Luis Vizcaino for the Dodgers' final run.

For De La Rosa, that marked five quality starts in six outings since the All-Star break. While he did have a five-out, seven-run misstep at Florida thrown in the middle, what has gotten the Rockies' attention is that he has allowed only eight earned runs in 312/3 innings in the five other starts, working at least six innings in each. After walking 39 batters in his first 742/3 innings of the season, he has walked only seven in 19 innings in his past three starts.

This is what the Rockies were hoping for when they picked up Livan Hernandez on waivers and had to decide who to drop from the rotation. The odd man out was Glendon Rusch, who had provided solid starting efforts after being called up. De La Rosa, however, had a potential to become a long-term answer.

"We felt we needed to get as good an evaluation as we could," Apodaca said. "We wanted to give him the opportunity to go out there on a regular basis for an extended period and see how he bounces back so at the end of the season we would have a good feel for what he could provide."

It is not like the Rockies had a sudden revelation. Arizona (which originally signed De La Rosa out of Mexico), Boston, Milwaukee and Kansas City all employed De La Rosa at one time, all saw flashes of brilliance, but all became discouraged with the inconsistency.

Before the All-Star break, the Rockies watched a rerun of what transpired elsewhere. He was 3-5 with a 7.26 ERA in his first 14 Rockies appearances, including 11 starts. But the turnaround began with back-to-back one-run starts against Pittsburgh and Cincinnati. Then came the stumble in Florida, but De La Rosa answered that with his third strong effort in a row, against the Dodgers.

"He's been able to keep calm and keep his focus," catcher Chris Iannetta said. "It is a matter of Jorge knowing he had to be better, and taking advantage of where he is and what he is capable of doing."

Comments

  • August 22, 2008

    9:14 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    SDcat writes:

    Well, we can't win em all but still an overall good effort from De La Rosa. We'll get Cincy tonight! Go ROX!!!