The Pirates beat the Rockies at their own game Sunday.
Pittsburgh turned three double plays, three more than the Rockies, in an 8-4 win. Nothing unusual there except that the Rockies had led the NL with 30 double plays compared with 12 for their opponents.
The list of reasons the Rockies are 17-9 despite a .237 team batting average is lengthy. Near the top is their fielding. They turn double plays like no other team in the league, and their .989 fielding percentage in April was second to Milwaukee’s .990.
“We’re not creating any added opportunities for the other side of the field,” manager Jim Tracy said. “There are 27 outs, and that’s what they get.”
Wigginton update.
Tracy was careful not to use Ty Wigginton against the Pirates. Why? Because if Wigginton suffers a setback with his strained oblique, the Rockies want to be able to put him on the 15-day DL retroactive to last week.
The Rox are hoping a weekend of inactivity plus today’s off day will enable Wigginton to play Tuesday at Arizona.
“You’ve got to be smart with it,” trainer Keith Dugger said. “There’s a high occurrence of reinjury with these things. If he’s pain-free, he’ll take light batting practice and we’ll see where he is.”
By the numbers.
The Rockies hit .236 last month, the second- worst in franchise history, but their pitchers allowed a .239 batting average, the best in franchise history.
Rest for the weary.
Tracy is intent on finding spots to rest Jonathan Herrera, inserting Alfredo Amezaga in the lineup Sunday. Said Tracy: “We saw early (in April) where it started to look like he was running down just a little bit. We gave him a day off and he came back fresh.”
Footnotes.
The start was the first for Amezaga since 2009, when he played for the Marlins. Said Amezaga, “It’s a different level of adrenaline.” . . . Tracy, on Todd Helton’s glove work: “He’s as good a first baseman as I’ve ever seen, most notably the balls he picks in the dirt. Unless you throw it to somebody sitting in the third or fourth row behind the dugout, it’s impossible to make a bad throw to the guy.”
Jim Armstrong, The Denver Post
