Rockies Report, Wednesday 9/30

We are in the home stretch, and besides the AL Central race between the Twins and Tigers, the
NL wild card race has shaped up to be an exciting race going into the last few games. The
Colorado Rockies pulled off a nail-biter of a victory over the Brewers on Tuesday night with
Catcher Chris Iannetta coming off the bench and hitting the walk-off, 2-run HR in the 11th
inning. That meant that the Rockies woke up Wednesday morning with the magic number of
three! I have to be completely honest and confess that I've been very wary of the surging
Atlanta Braves, who picked exactly the right time to go on this hot streak. Their loss to Florida
on Tuesday, however, cut that magic number down to 3 for Colorado. Everybody is talking
about how the Braves will pull this off and win the wild card because they have just 5 games
left, 4 of them against the lowly Nationals at home in Atlanta. The Rockies have their work cut
out for them, as they have 2 games left against the semi-dangerous Milwaukee Brewers at
Coors Field and then travel to LA to finish up with 3 games against the league leading
Dodgers. With the way that the Rockies have been playing, it seems to come down to who
wants it more. The Rockies have been battling through every game over the past few weeks and
their key players have been coming up big when it counted so far. The Rockies can win the wild
card with just 3 more wins out of their next 5 games. I think they are going to do it. The players
to watch in this last week are going to be Troy Tulowitzki, Todd Helton, Brad Hawpe, and even
Yorvit Torrealba who has been swinging a hot bat as of late. There will most certainly be major
contributions from many of the other players, like Clint Barmes (and his acrobatic catch behind
second on Sunday night) and Dexter Fowler or Carlos Gonzalez. The only piece of the puzzle
that the Rockies MUST solidify in this home stretch is their pitching. Huston Street is back and
has looked very good except for the Home Run he surrendered on Tuesday night. Aaron Cook is
also back and looked very good in his start against the Cardinals last Friday night. Jason
Marquis and Jorge De La Rosa have both struggled a little bit in the early innings and have let a
few of these games get too close for comfort. However, there have been a few instances where
they have settled down and started pitching well and instances where I would argue that Jim
Tracey has taken them out of the game too early and the bullpen has crashed and burned. The
final week of regular season baseball is sure to be exciting and we have arrived in October. With
most fantasy leagues coming to a close, many of these players are going to be players to watch
for next year. It's going to be an exciting final week!

Key player in this final week: Todd Helton.

I believe that Todd Helton has one of the best eyes in baseball and his game has turned
around at the right time for the Rockies. He is one of the leaders on this team and has also been
a lead contributor down the stretch. He was responsible for 2 of the Rockies early inning RBI's
on Tuesday night. He is hitting the ball well and he is hitting it to the right places. It gets me
excited even when I see Todd Helton in the dugout jumping up and down and giving high fives
to his teammates. He is playing with heart and I think that you will see his numbers continue to
do well over the last few games. He's pulled his average for the year up by .007 over the past 10
games and knows how to get hits (or even walks for that matter) during clutch situations.
Todd Helton's past 10 games:
DATE OPP RESULT AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB AVG
09/29 MIL W 7-5 5 1 2 1 0 0 2 0 1 0 .323
09/27 STL W 4-3 4 1 2 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 .322
09/26 STL L 3-6 4 1 3 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 .320
09/25 STL W 2-1 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 0 0 .317
09/24 SD L 4-5 5 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 .318
09/23 SD L 3-6 2 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 0 0 .317
09/22 SD W 11-10 5 1 3 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 .318
09/20 @ARI W 5-1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .315
09/19 @ARI W 10-4 3 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 .316
09/18 @ARI L 5-7 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .316