MLB:  Colorado Rockies, “It Keeps Getting better.”   

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“SPORTS NOTEBOOK” posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of every week---Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone.

MLB:   ROOTING for a comeback organization on its way up from having had a slow start or a steep mid-season dip is an American trait, evident this month during most games played by the Colorado Rockies, fans watching the men in purple with reinforced enthusiasm.

Though still in last place of the National League West at 53 wins and 75 losses, average .414, the Rockies have won 12 of their last 16 games, accruing 16 wins for August as of Tuesday’s victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers. The team’s 16-11 record for August is its first “win month” of the season. The Rockies finished 11/11 for April, 10-/18 for May, nine/18 re. June, the team’s worst month being July---seven/17.

No longer in downslide mode along with the below .400 Houston Astros and the Chicago Cubs, the Rockies have reflected other achievements since August 1, for instance, the four-man starter/limited pitching rotation seems to be paying off with left hand pitcher Jeff Francis having delivered a shutout against the L.A. Dodgers on Monday, a 10-0 win for the Rockies and the team’s fifth shutout of the year, followed next night by right hander Tyler Chatwood’s 8-4 win over the Dodgers, an opposing team that has held second place behind the San Francisco Giants in the NL West (Chatwood’s ERA is now around 3.4 for his six starts with the Rockies. The total Rockies starter ERA has come down in August, below 6.0).

Too, the Rockies have spiraled upward in August with top players on the team’s disabled list, e.g, the seasoned Todd Helton, Troy Tulowitzki, and recently, Dexter Fowler---the team’s anew with a line-up that includes several rookies perhaps not of the phenomenal skills exhibited by L.A. Angels rookie, Mike Trout, but surely above the expected margin for rookies, among them, catcher Wilin Rosario and infielder Josh Rutledge. Tuesday night, Rosario smacked his 22d home run, which placed him three behind Mike Trout, and third behind Helton and Tulowitzki among Rockies hitters with the most home runs in a rookie year (as of yesterday, Trout accrued 25 home runs). Rutledge is now the first Rockies rookie to hit a home run in four straight games---he’s now batting .364 against RHP’s, .276 vs. LHP’s.

Colorado & the NL West.   Given the Rockies recent climb toward achievement of a .500 or higher state of being, the team’s current position within the NL West seems inappropriate, especially when realized that while the Rockies are 18 games behind first place San Francisco, much of that has to do with losses to teams outside the NL West.

In truth, the Colorado franchise is only six games behind the remaining NL West clubs, when taken into account are only NL West games.

Against San Francisco, the Rockies record is three wins/eight losses, and versus the Arizona Diamondbacks the Rockies record is five wins/six losses; against the San Diego Padres, the Rockies are five/seven, and vs. the Dodgers, eight/six.

So, against NL West clubs the Rockies have won 21 games and lost 27, far from a deep-in-the-hole record.

Particularly noteworthy is that 13 of the Rockies hitters have double-digit multi-hit games, Carlos Gonzalez leading with 42, Dexter Fowler next with 28, Jordan Pacheco third, with 25. In August, an increasing number of Rockies hits have been doubles and triples.  

Also, since mid-August no Rockies loss has carried a deficit of more than three runs.

Up ahead are 34 remaining Rockies games, 25 vs. NL West teams, an opportunity for the Rockies to lift up from last to fourth place in its division, possibly third, though pullback could happen during a four game series vs. the NL East’s Atlanta Braves, a team that swept the Rockies across a series in May and that is likely to have a post-season billet within the NL; yet the Rockies lost the first game of that series by only one run, the second and third by two and three runs respectively, and in each of the three games the Rockies produced 12 runs.

And there could be rough going vs. the Philadelphia Phillies during a September three game stretch. The Phillies are currently 61/67, three games behind Atlanta in the NL East. In June, the Phillies wrapped up a series vs. the Rockies with two wins and one loss, but the Rockies drummed up three more runs than the Phillies had accumulated during that series, and its win in the series held the Phillies to only one run.

The Rockies defensive display against the Braves and Phillies in May and June, and the team’s above-described August turnabout, they anchor to reality the revitalized hope that the Rockies will finish the 2012 MLB season respectably and above the margin.

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