Rockies running out of games

The Rockies continue to hit like an armless zombie, getting shut out by the Mets today for the second time in three games. What's the problem with this team right now? Well, one can never take the complex and multi-faceted equation that is  a major league baseball team, over the many natural highs and lows that come during a six-month season, and boil its problems down to one solitary issue, unless that issue is that their hitting coach doesn't appear to know the first thing about how to coach hitting.

Yes, the team has a high average and has scored a lot of runs, but Rockies fans know that both of these have come in spurts punctuated by long spells of neither. This shows only that they have potential being frustratingly wasted this season. The fact that they can't seem to hit or score runs with any sort of reliability or consistency is a reflection of their coaching and their approach, not of their talent.

Oh, and another reason they struggle is that they sent their one decent and healthy contact hitter, Jonathan Herrera, down to the minors so that one of the least impressive hitters in the major leagues wouldn't have anybody showing him up at second base. Watching Clint Barmes walk to the plate in a Rockies game is like watching a half-naked teenager take a walk through the woods in a Friday the 13th movie, except that more often than not, the teenager looks pretty good right up to the point she's butchered.

Jonathan Herrera understood that a single can be more valuable than a home run, but that notion made him a heretic in the Rockies clubhouse, where each and every one of the Ten Commandments says "Thou shalt not hit a ball less than 400 feet," and he was therefore banished, and lots were cast for his clothing.

So, is there any good news today? Yes, some. Chipper Jones had a major knee injury that will likely end his Hall-of-Fame career. That's how freaking grumpy The Beard is today, folks... an eternal and omnipotent traveler of both space and time, reduced to schadenfreude. Thanks a lot, Don Baylor!

T.B.