By Steven Booth
This was going to be Troy Tulowitski’s year. After a sophmore-slump style, injury-riddled 2008 followed by a very effective 2009, it looked like Tulowitski was going to lead the young and talented Rockies to the promised land. They were even talking MVP.
This year has gone how the Rockies have gone. Solid, but not spectacular, which is still good enough to compete in the NL West. The Dodgers have taken over the lead for now, but the Padres are still playing strong, as are the Giants. The Rockies sit four games out, one decent winning streak away. Troy hasn’t hit the cover off the ball, but if your shorstop is hitting .306. with 9 HR’s and 38 RBI’s you can’t complain.
The Rockies like to get hot late in the year, and them and three others near the top of the division, it is still anybody’s race.
Now he gets injured. That has to hurt. Not only personally, but the whole team. Tulo will probably be back in August, and the Rockies will most likely still be hanging in the race about that time. But it still must hurt, having another major injury. Tulo is a proud guy who looks poised to become the face of the franchise if not now, when Todd Helton retires. He is a cornerstone of the lineup and a leader in the clubhouse. It must kill his pride to sit for an extended period of time. It will also hurt the team as a whole, losing one of the best young players in the league. His power will be missed by a team in a home run ballpark with only one player, Carlos Gonzales having double figures for home runs. Even more missed will be his .306 batting average. The Rockies are twentieth in the league in batting average, so they can’t afford to lose a consistent hitter.
Jim Tracy knows it.
“I am not going to shy away from it,” he said. ”This is a punch in the gut. Every team in baseball has a player, if he is going to sustain an injury for a period of time, it is going to take an effort of all the players to get through it. Troy is a difficult player to replace because of what he brings to the table every day — his determination, his grit.”
Granted, the Rockies are a scrappy team, and it is my bet they will be roughly in the same place in the standings when August comes around. The Dodgers don’t seem to want to run away with the race, and the other teams, save Arizona, will play well enough to stay in it. But the Rockies will need Rip van Helton to awaken, guys like Ian Stewart and Seth Smith to get consistent, and the starting pitching to tighten up to stay in it.
Tracy will find a way to keep his team in the race, and if he doesn’t, the other teams will probably not play well enough to run away with it. It’s the positive side of being in a mediocre division.
