SAN FRANCISCO — Wednesday marked both the last stop of disappointment and the first step of the Febreze Tour. There are no easy fixes for the Rockies, no scented candles, no sprays that can quickly eliminate the odor of perhaps the most disappointing season in club history.
The season began with talk of the World Series. It ended with the team thankful it avoided last place in the National League West.
“It has left a rotten taste in my mouth,” manager Jim Tracy said before his team pulled the curtain with a 6-3 victory over the Giants.
“I am going to work harder than I ever have before to get this turned around.”
After a 73-win season, Tracy’s determination is real. So, too, are the Rockies’ multiple needs.
The team is aching for a right-handed bat, someone like Michael Cuddyer to hit fifth or sixth in in the lineup. Third base and second base must flash “Vacancy” signs.
But for the Rockies to remove the stench with a fresh start, they need better starting pitching.
“You can’t win without it,” Tracy said. “Show me a team where the manager is going to get the starters in the fifth inning that is winning. We have to realize that where we play, in AT&T Park, Petco (Park), Dodger Stadium, you aren’t going to throw seven to eight runs out there. You have to win 4-3 and 3-2. You have to pitch.”
The Rockies’ progress next season will be measured by the growth of their young arms: Jhoulys Chacin, Drew Pomeranz and Alex White. Pomeranz finished with an encouraging outing in the season finale, rebounding from last weekend’s pounding by the Astros.
It’s impossible to overstate the importance of Pomeranz to the Rockies’ future. The power left-hander was the jewel that pushed the Rockies to sign off on the Ubaldo Jimenez trade. Despite inactivity from being shelved by his player-to-be-named status in that trade, and despite an emergency appendectomy that robbed him of his velocity, Pomeranz showed he can compete.
“I am not even close to the guy I was at the beginning of the year. I was hitting 98 (mph with the fastball),” Pomeranz said.
“My mechanics are not what they were,” he added. “My fastball is not there. My curveball and changeup aren’t either. But it’s been good in one way, because I have had to make adjustments on the fly.”
Pomeranz will not throw in the Arizona Fall League — “It’s for the best” — to allow his arm and body additional recovery time.
He finished 2-1 with a 5.40 ERA for the Rockies, his ERA bloated by his two-inning disaster at Houston. Pomeranz made no excuses for that failure and pitched with confidence Wednesday, consistently jamming the Giants’ hitters over 5 2/3 innings.
“He made it easy,” said Jordan Pacheco, who made his big-league catching debut. “He was pounding the zone with strikes.”
Pomeranz, 22, isn’t naïve. He understands that the Rockies’ ability to make up ground in the standings next season will fall on his shoulders, and that of other young pitchers.
“I don’t really feel pressure. It’s exciting to be part of this,” he said. “I learned a lot from this experience and I can’t wait to go to spring training to win a job and show them who I really am.”
