First an update on Casey Weathers. From the RMN:

[Weathers' injury] was officially diagnosed as a strained flexor muscle in his right forearm. The Rockies want club doctors to examine him to confirm the injury is not more serious.

Minor league director Marc Gustafson said Weathers, the Rockies’ first-round draft choice out of Vanderbilt in 2006, will be put on a rehab program with the expectation he will be ready for spring training.

Please don't be a more serious injury! We want to see Weathers get a spot in the bullpen at some point during the 2009 campaign instead of watching retreads fail and fail and fail. . . .

Also in the article, the coaching search receives a good deal of attention. The organization, it seems, would like Walt Weiss to become the hitting instructor, if he wants to be a full-time coach now. I can't really say much about that unless it happens, but I can tell you a bit about Walt Weiss and the 1985 draft.

The 1985 draft is one of the best drafts, if not the best, since 1965 (the year the draft started). Walt Weiss was the 11th pick of the draft, won the AL ROY award in 1988 (the third straight Athletics player to win it, after Jose Canseco in 1986 and Mark McGwire in 1987), became an oustanding defensive shortstop, played for the Rockies from 1994 through 1997, and finished his career with the Atlanta Braves.

But just take a look at the rest of that talent from 1985: B.J. Surhoff (1st overall), Will Clark (2nd overall), Bobby Witt (4th overall), Barry Larkin (4th overall), Barry Bonds (6th overall), Pete Incaviglia (8th overall), Rafael Palmeiro (22nd overall), Randy Johnson (2nd round/36th overall), and Mark Grace (24th round/622 overall). This article from 2002 will tell you even more about the 1985 draft.

Back to the vacant position that is the hitting coach. Greg Colbrunn and Tony Muser are possiblities for the job if Weiss doesn't accept. Colbrunn, we know, is a former Rockie. Tony Muser, as the article mentions, once managed the Denver Zephyrs. He also managed the Kansas City Royals from 1997 to 2002 (fired within days of Buddy Bell's dismissal from Colorado in April). He also had three solid seasons with the bat during the 1970s (73-75) but was done after a brief stint with Milwaukee in 1978.

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Terry Frei chimes in on the coaching staff, or more specifically, on Clint Hurdle's backside. Frei's bottom line:

Hurdle's still a good guy.

As a manager, he has become indefensible.

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Pebble Report Update: Chris Nelson collected his first two hits in the AFL. The first was a solo homer in the eighth inning of Friday's game and on Saturday he had a single and two RBI.

I had something written here, but then my browser messed up and it all went away. So, I'll just recommend that you look at both game threads to get a feel again for that night: Game Thread # 1. Game Thread #2. So many of those comments are quite amusing. Though reading through the comments, at some point that day I must have told Silverblood that the game was going to go into extra innings since she said I called it. Now, I didn't see a comment I made on the site saying that, so I must have made it earlier in the day when I spent the afternoon with her. Funny that it actually did turn out that way.

I think I only got one hour of sleep that night. Between three and six, I fell asleep three times for about 20 minutes each time. I had to wake up early the next day since I was helping out at a history conference the next day. I didn't fall asleep at all during the day. Watching the Rockies reach halfway to an NLCS victory couldn't be passed up.

Jeff Francis went 1-1 in three starts against the Arizona Diamonbacks during the 2007 regular season. He had a 2.84 ERA in 19 IP. Brandon Webb had a 1-3 record in six starts against the Colorado Rockies. In 3 IP, Webb posted a 5.77 ERA, allowed 26 runs on 43 hits, and walked 17 Rockies. The Rockies were the only team to put a dent into what turned out to be a Cy Young runner-up season for Webb. Jeff Francis and Brandon Webb faced each other to start the series.

Once again, the Rockies took advantage of Brandon Webb. Though the D'Backs took the lead in the bottom of the first on an Eric Byrnes double, the Rockies answered back in each of the next two innings. One run scored when Troy Tulowitzki hit into a bases-loaded double play in the second inning. The third inning opened the gates. Kazuo Matsui opened the scoring with an RBI single, and Brad Hawpe had a two-run single to make the score 4-1. When both starters were done, Jeff Francis came out ahead. He went 6 2/3 innings and allowed only a run. Brandon Webb was charged with all four runs in six innings of work.

The Rockies added the fifth run when Kazuo Matsui reached on an error. Yorvit Torrealba, who reached base that game via the walk and moved over to third by the time Matsui was at the plate, scored. Then came the most memorable moment in the game.

In the bottom of the seventh, Jeff Francis allowed a leadoff double to Chris Snyder. Stepping to the plate was Justin Upton. Francis hit Upton, sending him to first. Augie Ojeda promptly hit into a double play. Justin Upton slid right into Matsui's legs, which led the umpire to call interference. Then Arizona fans started throwing bottle on to the field. Well, those few in what was already a small crowd (who came up with such an early time for that game?).

Oh, and Miguel Montero made the last out of the game when he slid past second on his double.

The Rockies kept on winning.

First, happy 24th birthday to Troy Tulowitzki! A year ago today, he turned 23 and was ready to take the field in his first National League Championship Series a day later. It was a tough baseball year for him between that day a year ago and today. But he is resilient. His 2008 second half showed progress from his abysmal first half. So, to Troy Tulowitzki: May you have a great 2009 campaign!

Having swept the Philadelphia Phillies, the Colorado Rockies had to wait and wait and wait to start the next series. As did the Arizona Diamondbacks, who swept the Chicago Cubs. For four days, fans of both teams endured the wait. Just read what Rox Girl had to say the day before the first game:

Dear diary,

I haven't seen the Rockies in four days. The media tries to comfort me with the last vestiges of the Yankees/Indians series and the downfall of the Bronx Empire, but it's a poor substitute. I don't know how much more of this I can take. Distantly, I remember of something called the "off-season" and how it would last for months at a time and I marvel that I was once able  to endure that long without Rockies baseball. I am told that there are many baseball fans enduring that right now, and I pity them. Thankfully, my own torture is about to end soon, the players are back on the field practicing, the manager is recovering from the flu and I am told tomorrow there will again be Rockies baseball for me to watch and absorb. Thank the heavens. -RG

That taste of October baseball with the Rockies in it had made us addicts. We wanted it to keep going; we wanted the next game right now because the Rockies looked like an unstoppable machine (even if we did have some doubts). Without that fix, we were lost.

Did the Rockies have it in them? Well, we all know the answer to that, but stay tuned anyway.

Yesterday the Arizona Fall League started play and, as noted yesterday, the Colorado Rockies have their minor leaguers on the Phoenix Desert Dogs. The Desert Dogs faced the Mesa Solar Sox and lost the game in 10 innings.

On the hitting side of things, Eric Young, Jr., starting at DH, had the best start of the bunch. EY had a hit in three at-bats and scored one of the two runs knocked in by Rusty Ryal's triple. Chris Nelson, the starting second baseman, went 0-for-3 and struck out twice. Nelson struck out 21% of the time in 329 plate appearances for Tulsa in 2008. Mike McKenry did not start the game, but he did come in as a pinch-hitter in the 10th. He struck out to end the game. Toronto's J.P. Arencibia will likely be the Desert Dogs' primary catcher.

Shane Lindsay was the only Rockies pitcher to see action yesterday. He pitched the eighth inning, allowing two hits. He sued only 13 pitches to get out of the inning, but only six of them went for strikes. Arizona's Max Scherzer started the game, went seven innings, allowed two runs (one earned) on four hits,  and struck out four. Those two runs scored on a homer in the first inning.

The Desert Dogs take on the Solar Sox again later today.

Let's be honest: The rotation for the Colorado Rockies in 2008 was not very good. Or not even good. Jeff Francis didn't build on his strong 2007 campaign; Ubaldo Jimenez struggled for the first half of the season; Jorge De La Rosa was maddeningly inconsistent until the last few weeks of the season; Franklin Morales didn't carry over any of his late-season success from 2007; 2006 1st-round pick Greg Reynolds failed to show he was ready for the bigs; and the experiment known as Mark Redman, predictably, didn't work.

But there was some good. Ubaldo Jimenez turned into a reliable and consistent pitcher during the second half of the season; Jorge De La Rosa transformed himself into almost a given in the rotation for 2008; and we saw Purple Row's 2008 Pitcher of the Year in Aaron Cook finally have that breakthrough season. There aren't many reasons to open this up to voting. No starter was more consistent or better than Cook.

In his third full season as a starter for the Rockies, Aaron Cook posted a sub-4 ERA (2005's 3.67 was better, but he did that in 13 starts after coming back from the life-threatening injury he suffered in 2004). The NL's ERA was 4.64. 

Cook's FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) was 3.80, which was expected at 4.23. FIP, basically, measures what a pitcher is specifically responsible for, regardless of what his fielders did behind him. 2008 is only the second time Cook's FIP has been lower than his ERA. The other time was in 2006 when Cook had that 9-15 season.  Another stat to look at: Cook's home runs as a percent of outfield fly balls, or HR/F, was 8.1%. The average percentage is between 11% and 12%. Being able to keep that percentage that low will be a tough thing to do.

While the Colorado Rockies aren't playing October baseball, six Rockies prospects are currently playing baseball for the Honolulu Sharks in Hawaii. Those six are pitchers Connor and Andy Graham and David Patton and position players Lars Davis (C), Darin Holcomb (3B), and Mike Mitchell (OF).

Here's how the pitchers have done so far (play began on September 28):

And now the position players:

The Arizona Fall League begins tomorrow. Rockies prospects are pitchers Shane Lindsay, Ryan Mattheus, Chaz Roe, and Casey Weathers and position players Mike McKenry (C), Chris Nelson (SS), and Eric Young, Jr. (listed as OF). They'll play for the Phoenix Desert Dogs.

Casey Weathers should use this time as a tuneup for competing for a roster on the major league team come February and March. I'd also like to see Ryan Mattheus have a strong campaign in order to compete for a spot in the bullpen this spring. I'm not saying he'll make it at the start of the season, but Mattheus has to be better than some of the guys who were thrown out there this past season. Also, let's see what Chris Nelson can do after a disappointing year. The AFL is usually a good place to pick things up with the bat, so take that however you want to.

Free7694 has graciously offered his help in remembering Rocktober. He should check in soon with an entry on Game 3 of the NLDS.