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The Colorado Rockies took two of three games this weekend from division rival San Francisco Giants and increased their National League wild-card lead to three games. And yesterday, the Rockies snared a thrilling come-from-behind victory against Giants pitcher Tim Lincecum (via The Denver Post).
The Rockies can increase their wild-card lead to four games if they can take another from San Francisco tonight at Coors Field (6:10 p.m., Fox Sports Net). The San Francisco Chronicle writes that the Giants won’t catch the Rockies in the playoff race if they keep playing the way they do, so let’s hope they’re right.
Meanwhile, some odd news popped up in the Bay Area over the weekend. The Rockies have apparently signed former Oakland A’s and Yankees slugger Jason Giambi to a minor league contract, according to Fox Sports. The move shows the Rockies want another left-handed bat to come off the bench in September and that Rockies’ management is willing to do pretty much anything to win this year.
Giambi admitted to taking steroids earlier in his career and in a May 2007 New York Daily News piece said he should have come clean about the drug use much sooner. We’ll see how that one shakes out, considering the A’s dumped Giambi earlier this year, basically for being a shell of his former self.
But at least the Los Angeles Dodgers lost to the Chicago Cubs yesterday, putting the Rockies three-and-a-half games behind the division leader. The Rockies can make up serious ground on the Dodgers later this week when the teams meet up three times at Coors Field. The Rockies will likely be without outfielder Carlos Gonzales, after the surging slugger tried to catch a steak knife that was falling off his kitchen counter Saturday and cut his left hand open (via KDVR).
The Rockies have been one of the best teams in baseball since June 1, writes USA Today, even though starting pitcher Aaron Cook was placed on the disabled list with a strained pitching shoulder. The paper also notes that the Rockies’ entire season—the entire atmosphere that surrounds them as they go about their business—can be described in one word: sick. (“Sick” in a good way.)
