With the one-game wonders of opening day long gone, life at Coors Field returned to normal Saturday night. Well, as normal as a 79-degree evening on the second of April can be.
The pageantry, politicians and TV anchors returned custody of the ballyard at 20th and Blake to its customary denizens, 40,216 of them, and once more you could hear the beer vendor’s occasional yodel floating up from the lower deck.
On Day 2 of the Rockies’ much-anticipated 19th season, they were who we thought they were — a deep, talented team producing key hits as easily from the eighth hole in the lineup as the third or fourth.
In fact, to channel a little of Todd Helton’s famous superstition, it might continue to produce them from the eighth more often than the fourth so long as cleanup hitter Troy Tulowitzki remains hostage to the sugar-pop heroine Katy Perry, who continued to bleat his walkup song into the rarefied air.
Seriously, it’s as if the baseball gods are saying enough is enough with the teenybopper stuff. I would suggest that AC/DC is an appropriate antidote, but perhaps Tulo isn’t after the aging boomer demographic. Through two games, he is the only starting position player without a hit.
Fortunately, Ms. Perry seems to have no effect on his defense, which robbed Diamondbacks outfielder Justin Upton of a hit up the middle in the sixth with a spear, spin and throw behind second base that could have been . . . well . . . a Katy Perry dance move.
This preceded a Seth Smith catch and crash into the Rocks’ bullpen door and followed an Ian Stewart backhand and strike across the diamond to Helton from approximately the third base coach’s box. All of which preceded a Carlos Gonzalez 40-yard-dash and flying layout across the left field foul line to catch a Miguel Montero opposite- field fly slicing away from him.
In short, the Rocks played defense with a skill and grace that occasionally blurred the line between sport and art. To which the fans at Coors Field responded, inexplicably, by doing the wave.
Because I believe the wave is better confined to football games, I wasn’t sure about wave etiquette at a baseball game, but it seemed to me that doing it when your team is in the field might be distracting. So I asked baseball expert Tracy Ringolsby of Root Sports whether a defensive inning is a good time to do the wave.
“Is there a good time to have syphilis?” he replied.
In any case, after a winter of angst about the Rocks’ second tier of young hitters, the ones who disappointed a year ago, the most encouraging aspect of Day 2 was the source of the scoring.
Catcher Chris Iannetta, whose hitting was often maligned after putting up batting averages of .228 in 2009 and .197 in 2010, singled and scored the first run, then doubled to drive in the second and score the third.
After two games, he is batting .500. A small sample size, to be sure, but an early validation of general manager Dan O’Dowd’s unorthodox decision, following two seasons in which Iannetta’s competition ended up taking over for long stretches, not to provide significant competition this year.
The big difference between Opening Day and Day 2, of course, was the starting pitching, which also provided the only unsettling news. With Ubaldo Jimenez’s subpar outing attributed to a torn cuticle on his thumb, Jorge De La Rosa came out of Saturday’s game in the sixth inning with a blister on the second finger of his left hand.
So, two games in, the top two pitchers in the Rockies’ rotation both have issues with their throwing hands, although De La Rosa said his was customary and no big deal. The least effective pitcher of the evening was closer Huston Street, but he did shut the door when he had to.
All in all, the Rocks looked relieved to have the opening day hoopla behind them. Relegated again to the world of baseball and those who inhabit it, they looked considerably looser.
“You get the first one out of the way and now it’s down to business,” veteran Jason Giambi said.
“Trust me, for the players leaving spring training, you’ve been waiting for opening day all spring. You’re excited, the fans are excited. Some guys play well on opening day, some guys don’t. But now I think everybody settles into where they need to be. Like, OK, it’s over, now let’s just do what we need to do.”
The Rocks bounced back from a messy opener to play with the confidence and skill we expected. Maybe it was the uniforms. Those classic whites matched their game.
Dave Krieger: 303-954-5297, dkrieger@denverpost.com or
