The Blowout

You knew the possibility existed. Bringing up a Double-A pitcher for a spot start was dangerous. You hope for decent start to tide you over, especially with the anemic offense the Rockies have been showing, but you also know it's possible it could be a blowout, especially going up against a pitcher who has been one of the best this season going 5-0, 1.98 ERA. The Rockies have made lesser pitchers look like Cy Young this year.

And it turned into a blowout, but not the way you were thinking. A 6 run first Tacos by the end of two innings and a dozen runs scored by the 4th, took a lot of pressure off of Juan Nicasio on Saturday night and he pitched a gem of a ball game getting a 15-4 win. The Rockies have now scored 27 runs in their past two victories, and only 18 in their last 7 losses.

Crazy game baseball.

Nicasio's brilliant outing, just addds more options to the starting pitching staff. The current rotation is Chacin, Hammel, Mortenson, and Jimenez, with Aaron Cook likely joining in sometime this week on the road. Esmil Rogers could come back soon also, which will give the Rockies a decision on Mortenson, as a starter or Greg Reynolds in long relief. It's quite odd to say that the Rockies strength is their starting pitching, but right now, that's the truth.

You had to feel great for Chris Iannetta last night, 4-5, 2 HR and 6 RBI. The guy has been doing little things to help this team all year, and it was great to see him come up big.

A word about the Buster Posey Collision: Much has been said and written about the collision Buster Posey took against Florida's Scott Cousins (video Here). Many are calling it a clean play, and I strongly disagree.

For one thing Posey was not blocking the plate. In fact no part of Posey's body at the time of the collision was on or over the plate. Cousins had plenty of room to slide away from the tag and touch the plate without going near Posey. Cousins was clearly headed toward Posey and not the plate. Unnecessary hit and unnecessary injury. There are plenty of instances where the catcher gives no room to the runner either intentionally (as in Ray Fosse vs. Pete Rose in the 1970 All-Star Game) or inadvertantly (as in the 2007 Tiebreaker game with Matt Holliday and Michael Barrett) where a collision could be warranted to get to the plate but this wasn't it.

Cousins was definitely wrong here and should be disciplined.

As for rule changes, I wouldn't protect catchers anymore than I would protect runners. Josh Hamilton hurt himself coming into the catcher earlier this season. Injuries can happen on either end of the collisions. The only way I would institute a rule change is to force the catcher to give the runner part of the plate and require a runner to avoid a head on collision by sliding on close plays, or avoiding a collision. Without both parties amending their approach, injuries will continue to happen.