I’ve gotten into a bad habit.
I realized that Friday night as I watched waves of rain and hail swamp Coors Field, again.
Right-hander Eddie Butler was already done for the night, having given up six runs on a career-high 11 hits in a mere 5 innings. Included in the onslaught was a 478-foot homer by Miami Marlins slugger Giancarlo Stanton that took off like a jet from DIA.
Of course, I immediately started focusing on the struggles of yet another Rockies starting pitcher. The rotation’s ERA is 4.95, and only the Milwaukee Brewers’ 5.06 ERA is worse.
Then I looked at my scoresheet and realized that Marlins right-hander Tom Koehler had dominated the Rockies — one run on eight singles over seven innings. Koeh- ler is not an ace, but he sure looked like one against the Rockies on Friday night.
Simply put, the Rockies’ offense is not pulling its weight, especially at home. If it were, the Rockies would be out of the National League West basement and might actually have a chance to make things interesting. As it is, they were still only six games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers.
At first glance, things look rosy. Colorado’s .272 team batting average ranks second in the National League. The Rockies are hitting .298 at home, best in the NL.
But dig deeper and it’s clear there is a major power outage in LoDo. Colorado has scored 132 runs at home, third in the NL. But given the team’s mantra that it must bludgeon opponents when they come to Denver, that’s not good enough.
The Rockies have hit 59 home runs, third in the NL, but they have hit just 25 at home. That ranks eighth.
But it’s not just home runs that are lacking. Colorado’s .349 on-base percentage at home is on pace to be the worst in franchise history.
And this just might be the slowest team in Rockies history. They have swiped 24 bases — as a team — ranking 10th in the NL. They have been successful stealing bases only 57.1 percent of the time, ranking 13th.
And let’s be honest, the Rockies are molasses on the basepaths. Troy Tulowitzki and Nolan Arenado sure can hit, but they can also create traffic jams between second and home.
Injuries to Justin Morneau and Corey Dickerson have no doubt hurt offensive production, but Carlos Gonzalez’s prolonged slump has been the No. 1 killer. He was batting a mere .220 with a .597 OPS in 24 games at Coors Field. Heading into Saturday’s game against the Marlins, CarGo had one home run and five RBIs at home. That’s almost unbelievably bad.
Gonzalez has heated up a bit lately, hitting .333 (14-for-42) in his last eight games, but he’s not hitting for power, and he’s not hitting in the clutch. CarGo’s average with runners in scoring position is just .289. With runners in scoring position and two outs, he’s batting .143.
That’s not what you want from a cleanup hitter, but manager Walt Weiss continues to plug CarGo into the No. 4 hole.
“I see signs (that Gonzalez) is improving, but he’s not there yet,” Weiss said Saturday.
CarGo was hitting sixth in the batting order for a while until Weiss moved him into the cleanup spot, “hoping it might jump-start him a little bit.”
Weiss also said: “CarGo is always a threat. He’s somebody that the opposing pitcher has to be concerned about.”
There have been some nice surprises, such as second baseman DJ LeMahieu’s .331 average and 26 RBIs. And Tulo is heating up — .577 over his last six games, raising his average from .266 to .303.
But the offense is not clicking at home yet, and until it does, the Rockies will continue to be basement dwellers.
“We’ve got to win a minimum of 50 games at home to even get in the conversation for the division (title),” Weiss told me toward the end of last season when the Rockies went 45-36 at home for the second straight season. “I think it’s probably closer to 52 or 53 — which is dominating. Which is what we need to do.”
As I write this, the Rockies are on pace to win 31 games at Coors. There is no earthly way they will finish that poorly, but if they want to be more than an afterthought after Broncos camp opens, they had better start hitting better in a hurry.
Patrick Saunders: psaunders@denverpost.com or
