MILWAUKEE — For the few, the perspicacious, the Rockies fans who understood what the franchise was up to through the lean years of the early aughts, this is the sweetest spring.
Their team is a legitimate contender, with a small boatload of emerging homegrown stars. In fact, for the first time in their history, the Rocks are a wildly fashionable pick to win the National League West.
You’ll forgive the organization, which was ripped routinely while it was building the player development system that produced the team everybody now loves, if it finds the hype mildly amusing.
“It is what it is,” general manager Dan O’Dowd said Saturday after flying home from spring training. “I don’t think any of us really give a flip, to be honest with you. We know it doesn’t mean a whole lot.”
Not to kill your opening-day buzz, but the message management has been preaching all winter is that no day is more important than any other. The kid Rocks will prove they have grown up when no moment is too big for them, and no moment too small.
“We left things on the table last year because the moments we got put in were bigger than our maturity to handle them,” O’Dowd said.
“And the only way we’re going to grow out of that is to embrace the opportunity of expectations and go out and play with an understanding of what we can become if we play the game the way we’re capable of playing it. And stop shying away from it. Stop worrying about what people say. Just relish it. Enjoy it. Live it. We’ve been talking about that all winter long.”
From an offensive standpoint, the spring couldn’t have gone much better. The Rocks hit .315 as a team, the best in baseball. They ranked 17th in home runs but first in doubles, triples and total bases. The three starters they are counting on to improve their plate efficiency — third baseman Ian Stewart, second baseman Clint Barmes and catcher Chris Iannetta — all did.
“We’ll have to see if it carries over when the bell rings, but we wore people out all spring long with our offensive approach,” O’Dowd said. “If that carries over, it’s going to be a good offensive team. We stayed in the middle of the field, we cut dramatically down on our strikeouts and we wore out the off gap with runners in scoring position.”
The pitching was less impressive, ranking 19th with an ERA of 5.02. This is mostly because Aaron Cook was rocked (0-2, 8.15), Jeff Francis was feeling his way back from shoulder surgery (0-1, 5.64) and the Triple-A kids didn’t throw enough strikes.
On the bright side, four of five members of the season- opening starting rotation were either good or very good: Jorge De La Rosa (3-1, 1.50), Ubaldo Jimenez (3-0, 2.89), Greg Smith (2-0, 1.50) and Jason Hammel (2-1, 4.88).
For all the frustration over Francis straining the subscapularis muscle in his left armpit during his final start of the spring, O’Dowd thought the outing was more important than the injury, which he compared to the one Franklin Morales suffered about the same time a year ago.
“I think Morales was out two to three weeks, so I would think Jeff, somewhere in that area,” O’Dowd said.
“In the start on Thursday, he finally looked like a major-league pitcher, to be honest with you. I mean, he let it go. And he had command, and he was busting bats and he had rotation and depth on his curveball.”
The Rocks have no illusions about Smith being a top-of- the-rotation pitcher, but they are comfortable with him stepping in while Francis heals.
“I think he’ll throw strikes,” O’Dowd said. “I think we’ll have to score runs when he pitches. It’s a tough matchup (Tuesday) with Randy Wolf. But I think he’ll give us a competitive start. I don’t see why he wouldn’t. He did it all spring. He really only had one bad outing in the spring.”
More worrisome is the continuing soreness in Huston Street’s right shoulder, forcing Morales into the closer’s role for now.
“On paper, we had a very good bullpen going into spring training, and obviously, coming out of spring training it’s not as good on paper,” O’Dowd said.
“I think anytime somebody has a shoulder injury and they really haven’t participated in live throwing, that is a concern. I wish I could tell you that everything’s going to be all right there. I can’t tell you that today.”
But injuries are always part of the deal over 162 games. Whether they come early or late, a contender plays through. The Rocks will see how well they do at that starting today at Miller Park.
“I don’t think anybody is caught up in all the hype,” O’Dowd said. “I don’t sense that at all.”
Except for us, of course, as we slide over to make room for the world on our little bandwagon. We’re allowed to get caught up. It’s opening day at last, and the Rocks are ready to roll.
Dave Krieger: 303-954-5297, dkrieger@denverpost.com or
