It's an Off Day

Um, hey MLB schedulers. Do you think that next year you could NOT give the Rockies 3 straight weeks without an off-day followed by 4 straight weeks with one? It makes these off-day posts hard to write. I mean, my fellow writers are crazy talented and awesome, but I'm not sure I can come up with enough links to fill a post four weeks in a row. Like the Rockies themselves, though, I'm not one to shy away from a challenge, so here goes.

• Yesterday's recap if you missed it.

• This is the time in the season when we should take our eyes off the play-offs and instead think of other good things that might happen. I tried my best to do that in my top 10 list for RoxPile this week.

• Hey, remember when the Rockies lost 17 Sundays in a row? We'll all be saying that to each other for years to come. The breaking of that streak was such a colossal relief, I think we all owe it to ourselves to relive it as often as possible. So go read every recap of that game that was written.
• Me
• Mark Townsend
• David Martin
• Jeff Aberle. And Jeff wins for being the happiest of all of us. Poor guy is in charge of Sunday recaps for Purple Row, so he waited longer than maybe any baseball writer in history ever has to publish a positive write-up. Jeff, way to hang in there buddy.

• Troy Renck finally had time to write more than 140 characters about the Ubaldo trade, and wow, this piece is a doozy. If you haven't read it, you absolutely must.

• Guess what? Just when you think nothing else can go wrong, something does.

• A lot has happened since Friday's loss to the Dodgers, but that was a sad one, and I was feeling down in the dumps. Bryan Kilpatrick of Purple Row pulled me out of them, and that is saying something.

• When we got the word that Alex White would most likely be joining the rotation, I had several friendly Twitter disagreements about who should make way for him. My personal choice was Jason Hammel but that wasn't a popular opinion. Andrew Martin agreed with me though, and apparently the organization agreed with us. Whether we were all right certainly remains to be seen. He's also a potential trade candidate. If he is on the block, I hope he finds great success wherever he goes.

• I used to think Bruce Bochy was a really good manager, but then there was the whole All-Star roster ridiculousness, and now his own team's fans are turning on him. Their complaints are similar to the ones we have about Jim Tracy. Maybe the whole division is in for a managerial overhaul?

• We almost had to endure Brady Quinn as a Rockie. Don't believe me? Read for yourself.

• Here's the MLB Trade Rumors bit on the Mike Jacobs fiasco. Considering steroids nearly ruined my interest in the game in the late '90s, stuff like this PISSES ME OFF. Especially when the guys involved make stupid excuses and act like they didn't know that they were doing. Adios Mike. Don't let the door hit you too hard on the way out.

• I'll be the first to admit I was not thrilled when Jason Giambi signed with the Rockies. In my mind he was a juicer and a quintessential east coast egomaniac. Not interested. But in the past couple of years, he's proved that, character-wise, he's actually a great fit for the Rox. Beyond that, his work ethic is very impressive and in fact one of the best on the team. Jim Armstrong's piece on Giambi is worth reading.

• Yes, Larry Walker should most definitely be in the Hall of Fame!! Thanks for pointing that out David Schoenfield!

• I love Justin Klugh so so much. He is a Phillies fan, which would normally be a dealbreaker for me, but he is one of those rarities who doesn't try to pretend like "Phillies fan" and "nice person" are not mutually exclusive. You should follow him on Twitter and read this piece he wrote for Call to the Pen. It might be the best thing you'll read this month.

• Yahoo's Jeff Passan examines the 14 teams making a play-off push (don't be shocked to find that the Rockies are not on this list) and analyzes their chances based on the records of the teams they face for the remainder of the season. Hey Giants: don't get cocky just because you're at the top of this list. The Rockies are coming for you. They're going to do everything they can to ruin your good time. P.S. What if schedule strength actually played a role in determining who got to play in the postseason? Am I the only one who thinks that might be kind of cool?

• If you're a Denver native Rockies fan like me, chances are you haven't had many opportunities to travel around to the affiliate ballparks. They're all on my bucket list and should be on yours too, but in the meantime take a peek at the Modesto Nuts' John Thurman Field.