The best thing you can say about the Rockies this year is that they are no longer historically bad. They are no longer 'worst ever' bad. They are just plain bad, which works I suppose.
Every so often you do hear of something good happening to this team, like a Jake McCarthy multi-homer day or a Hunter Goodman RBI masterclass, or Mickey Moniak still doing something cool. So the Rockies can still hit for power. That helps I suppose. You're in Denver, why not? The defense is still kind of atrocious, you've got Karros, McCarthy, Johnston and Moniak all doing well enough at the plate then drawing straws to see who gets to DH. Ezequiel Tovar's defense used to be a perk, but he's just not good at anything this year. The only really good defender on this team is T.J. Rumfield, and everyone else is average or below average.
Willi Castro is pretty indicative of the issues here. He is a career utility man, and can play a few different positions, but the trick is that he's got to be able to play them well. At second base he is decent I suppose, but he's losing defensive runs and doesn't have the range you'd expect. He's playing 2nd more often than not because Edouard Julien didn't work there [what a shocker], and the cool thing is, seeing as this is Denver, his power numbers are up. He's got 14 homers and 53 RBIs, plus a .423 SLG, which isn't Moniak or Goodman levels but is still good. It helps that this team has pure contact guys like Troy Johnson and Kyle Karros in addition to the power core.
Losing Hunter Goodman for a bit is a pretty harsh blow, but the Rockies have been moving some guys around from the minors. Zac Veen is up again, and he's been doing better than last time, with 2 homers, 7 RBIs and a .263 average in 8 games. Connor Norby's up after the trade for Victor Vodnik, he's hitting .269 with some of his usual contact success. I'm not sure if he's gonna be a working piece for them going forward, seeing as he's sort of limited defensively, but the contact numbers certainly help. I'm not sure if Jordan Beck's gonna be a thing for them sadly, he's still a sub-.200 hitter without much versatility. Brett Sullivan's a decent enough backup catcher that also is an above-average pitcher in blowouts. And for some reason, after failing to keep anything down in Los Angeles or Philly, somehow it is DENVER that levels Jordan Romano, as he's got 8 saves in 14 opportunities, and seems to have the position despite many younger options.
The Rockies are still kind of a mess. I have no idea what this rotation will look like going forward because there's no slam dunk options, and Chase Dollander constantly had to be opened for and still got hurt. If they can't get a halfway decent rotation together, in Coors Field, they're just gonna be like this for the rest of the decade, and again...there's a way of avoiding this that nobody in the front office wants to approach. So for now, enjoy the mildly interesting shitshow and let's hope there's some level of improvement.
Coming Tonight: He missed a lot of time for Toronto, but he's certainly been making up for it in the last few weeks.
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