MIAMI — A year later, it’s Jhoulys Chacin, not Ubaldo Jimenez, having the April to remember.
Chacin is 3-0 with a 1.64 ERA through three starts. Jimenez was 3-0, 1.29 through three starts last season but has been limited to 11 innings of work this April because of a torn cuticle on his right thumb.
Chacin, who will start for the Rockies tonight against the Marlins at Sun Life Stadium, is no one-month wonder. He’s coming off his first career complete-game shutout against the Cubs, the seventh time in 24 career starts in which he hasn’t allowed a run.
Wait, there’s more. Chacin since returning to the Rockies’ rotation for good last August is 7-3, 1.99 in 12 starts, giving him the third-lowest ERA in the National League in that span. Only Roy Oswalt (1.66) and Clayton Kershaw (1.95) have been better.
Road warriors.
Said manager Jim Tracy, as the Rockies were leaving Pittsburgh to play the Mets in New York, “We’re moving on to another city where it historically hasn’t been a good place, and personally I feel like it’s time to start rectifying some things there.”
Now comes Florida. The Rockies were 22-51 against the Mets in New York before their four-game sweep April 11-14. They haven’t fared much better at Florida, winning 28 out of 75 games, with one of the losses a no-hitter by Al Leiter.
Footnotes.
Jimenez could finish the month without a win. He has a tough matchup Sunday, with Josh Johnson (3-0, 1.00) going for the Marlins. . . . The Rockies used eight starting pitchers during their injury-filled 2010 season. They used seven in the first 15 games of this season. . . . Reliever Matt Lindstrom has logged seven consecutive scoreless outings, five of them hitless. . . . The Rockies are 6-3 when the opposition scores first. Last season, they were 24-45 in the same scenario.
Jim Armstrong, The Denver Post
