Clint Hurdle says he doesn’t scoreboard watch, not even in the heat of a pennant race. But the Rockies manager can count, and he knows his club needs a hearty winning streak for a realistic chance at a wild-card berth.
“It’s going to be needed, definitely,” he said. “We’re going to have to put together something like we put together earlier this year. But we have different parts now. So is it going to be challenging? Yeah. But I believe we can do it.”
The Rockies won seven straight from May 22-29, their longest winning streak since 1998. The problem is, they entered Saturday’s game against Washington having lost nine of their past 15 games, including dropping three of four at home to Pittsburgh last week. After a 5-1 victory, the Rockies are 4 1/2 games behind San Diego in the wild-card race with 33 games to play.
Complicating matters is the fact that there are three other teams chasing the Padres that trail by either four or 4 1/2 games.
“I think our chances are probably the same as they were a week or so ago,” Garrett Atkins said. “We just have to start playing better baseball. If we can get hot and put a streak together, you never know what can happen.”
Atkins bases his faith on the Rockies’ offense, one that had gone into early hibernation before scoring five runs in the bottom of the ninth Friday night in a 6-5 victory over the Nationals.
“We are very capable of getting hot and stringing some good games together,” he said.
What’s Cookin’
Right-handed starter Aaron Cook is scheduled to throw a bullpen session today to test his strained left oblique muscle. If all goes well, he’ll throw to live batters Tuesday in San Francisco. He might then be ready for a rehab assignment with Triple-A Colorado Springs at the tail end of its season, or he could rejoin the Rockies right away.
“I would prefer to come right back, but I think it all depends on how well I can throw in the next few days,” Cook said.
Footnotes
Friday night marked just the fourth time in franchise history the Rockies won a game when they came to their last at-bat in the ninth inning trailing by four runs. … Catcher Yorvit Torrealba continues shouldering a heavy load. Saturday marked his 31st start in 41 games since the all-star break. … Center fielder Willy Taveras (strained quadriceps) ran outfield sprints at nearly full speed Saturday and could go out on a rehab assignment in the next few days.
