Todd Helton’s days back in the three hole may be more like hours.
Manager Jim Tracy, in an attempt to awaken the echoes in the Rockies’ lineup, dropped Carlos Gonzalez to the No. 5 spot Saturday night and moved Helton to third, where he has spent most of his career.
“Just to give him (Gonzalez) a little bit of a change of scenery for a day or so,” Tracy said. “How is it going to turn out? I don’t know. The game is going to find him. He’ll have a chance to drive in some runs.”
Gonzalez had been a fixture at third since taking over for Helton last season. He had hit third in 21 starts this season, but Tracy decided to shake things up in light of Gonzalez’s .216 batting average and one home run in 88 at-bats going into Saturday’s game against the Pirates.
CarGo’s reaction? “As long as I’m playing, I don’t care where they put me,” Gonzalez said. “I’ve hit fifth before, I’ve hit leadoff, I’ve hit third, I’ve hit eighth. . . . As long as I’m playing and helping the team and getting my opportunities, I’ll be OK.
“I know if I start playing the way I play, I’m going to find my way back to the third hole. This might be a good thing. Let’s think positive.”
Tracy said he had a recent meeting with Gonzalez to try to get him to relax. Gonzalez signed a seven-year, $80 million contract during the offseason after winning the National League batting title in 2010.
“He’s fine,” Tracy said. “We have a tendency sometimes to just solely focus in on this guy, and that’s unfair. If it was just one guy, then obviously the conversation would be different. But there’s more than one guy trying to find his way offensively.”
Quote, unquote.
Tracy, on Major League Baseball exploring the possibility of expanding the playoffs to 10 teams: “Personally I feel that would be good for baseball. How they’re going to do it? They’re not going to ask me to weigh in on it.”
Footnotes.
Helton, who homered twice at Chicago in the three hole last week, doubled in his first at-bat Saturday. . . . Aaron Cook, on the 60-day disabled list with a broken finger, will pitch a simulated game Wednesday in the Rockies’ three-game series vs. the Diamondbacks. . . . Tracy said there’s no timetable for the return of Ian Stewart, who went into Saturday hitting .429 with three home runs and 13 RBIs in eight games in Triple-A: “The bottom line is Ian will get going. There’s no doubt about that in my mind. And the way he’s going to get going is by getting a number of at-bats.” . . . Game-time temperature was 45 degrees. Said Tracy: “With the exception of Florida, the cold weather has basically chased us everywhere we’ve been.”
