MILWAUKEE — This was a new beginning that didn’t seem fit for a happy ending. Hardly any team wins when it makes two costly errors and commits bullpen sins. For a bad club, it would have been a three-hour trailer for a season headed straight to DVD.
The Rockies, as everyone from ESPN to the Food Network knows, are not a bad team. They can win in a variety of ways, as their 5-3 opening-day victory Monday over Milwaukee proved. It wasn’t so much scrapbook material as a reminder of their resiliency.
“It’s always good to start hard. That’s how we finished last year and how we began again,” starter and winning pitcher Ubaldo Jimenez said. “It was exciting, for sure — from the first to the last out. It felt like a playoff game.”
Colorado arrived at Miller Park with postseason-or-bust all but scrolled across the charter bus windows. The players openly discuss their expectations, even talked about it over a team dinner Sunday night. Anything less than a World Series title, in their minds, will be a disappointment.
That helps explain why their heart rate remained unchanged in the ninth as Rockies fans watched back home with white knuckles. Closer Franklin Morales, with the tying run at the plate, retired the final two hitters on screaming line drives.
One run, one hit, no worries.
“Even when things weren’t going well, there was no doubt in our mind,” shortstop Troy Tulowitzki said. “We always felt like we were going to find a way to get it done.”
The box score will insist that the victory was fueled by Ian Stewart’s first home run and sacrifice fly, Carlos Gonzalez’s four hits and Ryan Spilborghs’ ninth-inning RBI double. But the real difference was in the details: a starter’s ammunition, a reliever’s disposition and a shortstop’s position.
Jimenez camouflaged two untimely fielding errors with a terrific performance. He threw his first pitch at 95 mph, and his 99th and last at 97. In between, he allowed only one run in six innings on Ryan Braun’s double, leaving with a 4-1 lead.
“That was the guy we saw all last year,” manager Jim Tracy said.
Jimenez provided room to exhale when breathing became halted in the seventh and ninth. Reliever Matt Daley was summoned to clean up the first mess. The stream of text messages arriving on his phone afterward testified to his sterling performance. Matt Belisle, who didn’t allow a run all spring, gave up a home run to Carlos Gomez on an 0-2 count, allowing Milwaukee to get within 4-2 in the seventh.
“A horrible pitch,” Belisle said.
Randy Flores, the specialist, allowed both left-handers he faced to reach in the seventh. That left the bases loaded for Daley with Casey McGehee in the box and the sellout crowd on its feet. Daley jumped ahead 1-2 with three fastballs, then got McGehee to pop up on a 78 mph slurve.
“I wasn’t going to take my foot off the pedal and allow them right back into the game,” Daley said. “He got under it just enough.”
Tulowitzki, whose glove betrayed him in the first inning, used his head for redemption in the ninth. With a run in, Prince Fielder at the plate representing the tying run and Morales teetering, Tulowitzki cheated up the middle. Fielder is one of the few left-handed hitters the shortstop doesn’t play to pull. Fielder promptly scalded a fastball that Tulowitzki snared with a leap. Jim Edmonds followed with a line drive to Clint Barmes at second, reducing the Brewers from a gut-wrenching threat to a high-grade irritation.
“I wasn’t nervous. I didn’t hear the crowd,” said Morales, who converted his first save on the same day closer Huston Street received a reassuring second opinion on his injured shoulder.
“My focus was on the catcher’s glove. I was confident when the balls were hit that they were going to be caught and that we were going to win.”
Troy E. Renck: 303-954-1301 or trenck@denverpost.com
Looking ahead
TODAY: Rockies at Brewers, 6:10 p.m., FSN, KOA 850 AM
Greg Smith (1-2, 7.28 ERA in Triple-A in 2009) didn’t want to make the rotation this way, but he was due for some good luck after missing almost all of last season due to injury and illness. Smith pitches like Jeff Francis, the man he’s replacing. He paints with a small brush, locating a 90 mph fastball to set up a devastating changeup. Smith hasn’t won a big-league game since Sept. 6, 2008. Randy Wolf (11-7, 3.23) was a Rockies-killer last year as the Dodgers’ de facto ace, holding them to a .205 average in four starts. Todd Helton, Brad Hawpe and Troy Tulowitzki have homered off the left-hander. Troy E. Renck, The Denver Post
Upcoming pitching matchups
Today: Rockies’ Greg Smith (1-2, 7.28 ERA in Triple-A in 2009) vs. Brewers’ Randy Wolf (11-7, 3.23), 6:10 p.m., FSN
Wednesday: Rockies’ Aaron Cook (11-6, 4.16) vs. Brewers’ Doug Davis (9-14, 4.12), 11:10 a.m., FSN
Thursday: Off
Friday: Padres’ Clayton Richard (9-5, 4.41) vs. Rockies’ Jorge De La Rosa (16-9, 4.38), 2:10 p.m., FSN
Saturday: Padres’ Mat Latos (4-5, 4.62) vs. Rockies’ Jason Hammel (10-8, 4.33), 6:10 p.m., FSN
Sunday: Padres’ Jon Garland (0-1, 4.50) vs. Rockies’ Ubaldo Jimenez (1-0, 1.50), 1:10 p.m., FSN
