If you take a look at the NL West standings, you might be surprised at what you see. You won't find the Dodgers, or the Giants, or even the D-Backs on top. Insted you'll find that the team to beat in the division is a team that I ranked 28th in my Opening Day power rankings. Yep, the Rockies.
How are they doing it? It's quiet simple. All you have to do is score more runs than your pitchers give up. The Rockes can do that. Their pitchers give up a lot of runs. Their offense scores a lot of runs. It's an even trade-off.
Run producers:
Colorado if you didnt know, trails only the Athletics in runs scored (115). Even better, the other 29 teams in baseball trail the Rockies in team batting average (.283). So where is this prouction coming from? How about, throughout the entire lineup. Six players on the Rockies have at least a .300 bating average. That's not counting Troy Tulowitzki's .299 season average. Here's another stat, only 7 different players have gone deep for the Rockies. Yet, Colorado ranks 2nd in the majors in homeruns (30).
As you can see, it's not just 1 guy having a good season. It's an entire lineup putting together a great case to be a playoff contender. I've said this before that I'm not close to being surprised as the Rockies lead the majors in hitting last year too. Their only problem was the fact that the Rockies were the worst pitching team in the game.
Pitching problems:
Last season, Colorado put up a major league worst, 5.23 ERA. This season, their 4.11 earned run average places them as 6th worst. It's no secrate that the Rockies aren't very taleted when it comes to pitching. Colorado hasn't had one decent pitcher since Ubaldo Jimenez. Even then, he was only good for one half of the season when he was 15-1 at the all-star break. We all know Coors Field isn't a pitcher friendly park. That's why you don't see many good players want to go there. They know that if they do they won't have success in the thin air, mile high Coors Field.
For now it's ok. As long as the 4.11 ERA doesn't rise any higher than it is and the 4.50 runs per game that the offense puts up stays where it's at, then the Rockies will succeed.
Wild, wild west:
We all know that the NL West isn't at full strenght. Don't worry, because soon, it will be. The Dodgers won't struggle forever. They're way too good. Unfortunetly for them, they ran into some injury problems at a bad time. They once had eight starting pitchers on their roster. Since then, Aaron Harang was traded away and three got hurt. Matt Kemp isn't off to a hot start, but don't worry. It's Matt Kemp, he'll bust out of it. When he does, the rest of the lineup will get hot with him.
The Giants are the Giants. They never go anywhere. They've showed us over the past couple of year that you don't need to spent big to get results. Look at them, the nucleus of their team hasn't changed since their 1st championship in 2010. They'll pitch, they'll hit, and they'll be in the race until the very end.
Then of course theres the D-backs who you can't count out just yet. They're young, they're talented, and they can certainly pitch. I watched them in their series against the Yankees last week. One thing that I liked was the young power arms in the rotation. Wade Miley and Patrick Cobin both impressed me and they did great jobs at keeping the Yankees bats quiet.
This division will be something to watch as the season progresses. But wht I'm going to watch more of is the Rockies. I want to see if they eally ca hang around. Prove me wrong. And play much better then a team that I ranked 28th.
Follow @GavinEwbank2013 on twitter.
No comments:
Post a Comment