The San Francisco Giants arrived with playoff ambition and left with helium-inflated earned-run averages.
The Atlanta Braves wandered into town desperate to finish with a winning record and boarded a charter dejected, their pitchers battered.
Giants manager Felipe Alou summarized both plights with a stinging remark: “What happened to the humidor?”
That thought resonated after the Rockies paddled the Braves 9-8 Sunday at sun-soaked Coors Field.
The Rockies used the series finale to show off a piece of history, the retiring Vinny Castilla. But the announced crowd of 30,216 could hear the past with nearly every swing of the bat. Colorado and Atlanta combined for seven home runs, most in Denver this season.
If it were a single game, it would be an interesting footnote. The home run explosion, however, has lasted an entire month. The runs are as impossible to ignore as Brad Hawpe’s eighth-inning pinch-hit blast that carried Colorado all the way back from a seven-run deficit.
At the all-star break, the Rockies had 35 homers in 44 home games. There have been 33 home runs in the past 11 home games, including 18 by the Rockies. Entering September, the average total runs per game at Coors Field was 9.46. This month, it’s 16.36, a 43 percent spike.
“I don’t know how to explain it. We have some big, strong guys I guess,” said Rockies first baseman Todd Helton. “They have been putting good swings on the baseball.”
The humidor didn’t look any different after Sunday’s game, its gold padlock in place, the slight hum of electricity emanating into the hallway. Several pitchers asked said they haven’t noticed a change in the baseballs, though many admitted the ball is traveling farther than it did earlier in the season.
Why?
Matt Holliday believes it could just be a confluence of better hitters, tired and inexperienced pitchers and cold weather. When the temperature drops, home runs usually rise in Denver. Rockies rookie Juan Morillo, torched for seven runs in his debut despite hitting 96 mph on the radar gun, told pitching coach Bob Apodaca that the Braves hit “all” of his mistakes.
And Jeff Baker, Holliday pointed out, wasn’t around until this month. Baker has gone deep five times in 45 at-bats, including a 395-foot shot Sunday.
“I didn’t see the 2-1, 1-0 games in April and May, so I don’t know what’s different,” Baker said. “Right now, guys seem comfortable in the box.”
The transformation is intriguing – and troubling. The Rockies are once again taking advantage of their home digs: 22-12 since the break. But now they can’t win on the road, where they have gone 8-27 in the second half. The Rockies credited their first-half road success, in part, to the normalization of Coors Field. They no longer had to be the 1927 Yankees at home and the 1982 Cardinals on the road.
The question now is can they hit for enough power to exploit Coors without turning into foam in visiting parks?
“You watch these guys in batting practice, Holliday, (Garrett) Atkins, Hawpe, (Troy) Tulowitzki, (Chris) Iannetta, they are the real deal. I don’t want to hear any Coors Field bull. They can hit them anywhere,” Castilla said. “I see what they can do and that’s why I know it’s time for me to get out.”
Staff writer Troy E. Renck can be reached at 303-954-1301 or trenck@denverpost.com.
