ALBUQUERQUE — It’s always something if you’re a Denver sports fan. Take the Rockies and Broncos, for instance. One can’t get started and the other can’t finish.
“Look at the Broncos’ season,” Rockies shortstop Troy Tulowitzki said. “Not to point any fingers at them, but I’m sure they wish they started off slower and finished off better. That’s the best way to look at it for me.
“Hey, we might get off to a slow start, but we’re going to finish strong.”
Since the Broncos have yet to lose a game in 2010, we won’t belabor their problems closing out the 2009 season. Suffice it to say, the two teams’ winningest month is September. Which is fine, except the Rockies open their season in April.
It’s a full-blown, you-could-look-it-up trend by now. For whatever reason, the local Boys of Summer have a tough time cranking it up in the spring.
Numbers? You want numbers? The Rockies in the past three years are 25 games over .500 — 16 under .500 in April, 41 over for the rest of the season. They’ve played 120 games in April in the past five years and won just 50 times.
What gives?
“The first thing I’d look at is myself,” Tulowitzki said. “I don’t know what it is. It seems like when I play well, we win. When I don’t play so well, we don’t win. It’s not to say it all falls on my shoulders, but I’m a big part of the team. I know that and the team knows that.
“I haven’t gotten off to good starts and neither has the team, but we’ve picked it up toward the end. I’m not worried about it. There’s one thing people need to remember. There’s going to be a month where either a player or a team struggles, and ours just happens to be at the beginning.”
There’s no denying the as-Tulo-goes-so-go-the-Rockies phenomenon. He’s a .329 career hitter in games they win, .228 when they lose. And nowhere does it come into play more than April, when Tulowitzki is a .194 hitter in three major-league seasons.
Not that he’s the lone factor. The Rockies’ team ERA last April was 5.46, more than a full run above their next-worst month and almost two more than their 3.60 mark in June, when they finished 21-7 en route to the playoffs.
The theories vary on why the Rockies stumble out of the gate, but know this: The players don’t much care.
“I’ve heard it’s maybe because we play in the cold, but I don’t buy it,” Brad Hawpe said. “A lot of places have cold weather at this time of year. Besides, you can’t say we’ve had bad Aprils. Sometimes we’ve just had bad years. We just weren’t good enough. We weren’t the quality club we are now.”
Said Todd Helton: “This (year’s) team has never broken out of the box slow. It will be our first time breaking out of the box together. We’ve never broken camp as this team. We have new guys every year, and different players make for a totally different makeup.”
Helton is confident the Rockies of 2010 will be just fine in April. Yes, closer Huston Street figures to miss the entire month, but the Rockies’ strengths are obvious. Their starting pitching is, by all accounts, the best in franchise history, and their defense is perhaps the best in baseball.
“Our starting pitching definitely makes you feel good,” Helton said.
The Rockies’ poor Aprils had them walking a tightrope in 2007 and 2009. They started 10-16 in April 2007 and had to win 14 out of 15 at the end, including a play-in game vs. San Diego, to make the playoffs. Last season, they started 8-12 and, after falling to 18-28 in late May, had to finish 74-42 to make it to the postseason.
It took those two teams months to find their identities, but that won’t be the case this season. With another April upon them, the Rockies know what they are. Yes, their hitting figures to come and go, but their pitchers throw strikes and eat innings, they run the bases aggressively and they catch seemingly everything in sight.
“It’s a good baseball team,” Rockies manager Jim Tracy said. “And it has a chance to get better as we go along.”
And if they lose their identity along the way?
“I’ll remind them, I promise you that.”
Jim Armstrong: 303-954-1269 or jmarmstrong@denverpost.com
Mariners 11, Rockies 11
Isotopes Park, Albuquerque
Hits: Carlos Gonzalez homered off left-hander Ryan Rowland- Smith in the first, giving him a team-leading 13 RBIs. . . . Ryan Spilborghs hit his first spring homer, an opposite-field shot off Rowland-Smith. . . . Brad Hawpe didn’t get cheated on his first spring homer, a 400-foot-plus drive to center field. . . . Rafael Betancourt had his best outing, a 1-2-3 sixth in which he struck out Eric Byrnes on a 91-mph fastball.
Misses: Aaron Cook was down 2-0 two hitters into the game after Chone Figgins’ two-run homer. Cook’s final spring ERA: 8.15. . . . The Rockies played like they had one eye on opening day, committing five errors. . . . Tim Redding’s audition for other clubs didn’t go well. Redding, who could opt out of his contract today if he has a job on another team’s 25-man roster, worked one inning and allowed four hits and four runs, two earned.
What’s next: Mariners, today, 12:05, Isotopes Park, Albuquerque. Jorge De La Rosa vs. Doug Fister.
Mayday in April
The Rockies are hoping to avoid another slow start in April, which almost cost them playoff berths in 2007 and 2009. A look at their month-to-month team ERA from last season:
Month ERA
April 5.46
May 4.44
June 3.60
July 3.77
August 4.27
September 4.18
October 2.97
Source: Rockies
