The First Series

The first series of the year always comes with great anticipation, and it's easy to get too caught up in the result of that series. In 2010, the Rockies won opening day, but then dropped the next two. In 2009, the Rockies lost the first game, but won the next two.

In any three game series, you can hope for a sweep, but most of all you hope to avoid a sweep. The first series of the year always matches up the #1 pitchers on both teams in the opener, usually followed by the #2's and #3's. The Rockies got a great start out of Jimenez on Monday, and then got a little stuck putting out there #5 pitcher because of Francis going on the DL. By all rights, De La Rosa would be the #2 pitcher, but Jim Tracy wanted him to be the pitcher at the home opener. Smith held his own, but the Rockies still lost. Wednesday's game had to be a little disheartening as the Rockies got out to a 3-0 lead, and had a chance to put the game out of reach further in the 1st, and eventually blew a 4-1 lead to lose 5-4.

Now truthfully, I was out of town and didn't see or hear any of the games, but when I came home and saw the paper this morning and the comparisos to last year, I cringed. It's only 3 games people!!!! Granted the 2010 Rockies are 1 game behind the 2009 Rockies, but the Rockies like last year were in all 3 games. There were some opportunities to knock in more runs, the bullpen faltered a couple of times, but all in all, I would expect this Rockies team to gel a little bit faster than last. It doesn't hurt that they will play 6 of the first 9 at home instead of playing only 3 of the first 14 at home last year. Last year they also played 20 of the first 25 against the west, while this year, the only west games are this weekend in the first 19. They don't play their 20th game against the west until May 29th.

Let's let them get their feet a little more wet and see what they can do, shall we?