The Start of the Start...

Every spring you hear every team talk about getting off to a good start. But how do you measure when the start is over? Is it the first two weeks? The first month? Two months? Longer?

As I've talked about before, the season for me is broken into parts. The Rockies of 2007-2009 all hit the same point at 18-27 which is 45 games into the season, and then had different results after. A "start" would be somewhere in between the first 6th (27 games) and the first quarter which is 40 games. For the Rockies this season, without any more rainouts or snowouts, would hit 27 games May 1st, and 40 games on May 16th. May 1st would end their 3rd homestand and May 17th would end their 4th Home stand, so let's look at where they are on May 1st and May 17th.

But either way, a start is not the first two weeks of the season. In 1997 the Rockies got off to a 10-3 start on the way to a high point of 21-9 in early May before going 24-46 in the next 2.5 months, then finishing 38-24 and had a final 83-79 record.

There are highs and lows in any season, and the strange thing about the Rockies so far is that they haven't "looked" like they are on fire, but they are doing enough to get by with the wins, and admittedly they have been playing mediocre teams for the most part. Despite that, they have not had tremendous success in either Pittsburgh or New York.

Pitching has not been bad, and there have been a couple of strong starts, but not overpowering. And don't forget that Ubaldo has not really been in the picture yet, but you have to like the gutsiness of Greg Reynolds, and Esmil Rogers.

Tulo is the only player who has been anything like on fire. 7 home runs in the past 10 games and seems to be proving that last September was not a fluke. He has definitely taken over leadership of this team as well.

Lots of positives so far in the Rockies first two weeks. But the start is not over--yet.