NL West

Welcome back, Dexter.

For the second time this season, the Rockies made Tim Lincecum, the two-time defending Cy Young winner, look like just another pitcher.

This time, 22-year-old Jhoulys Chacin kept the Rockies in the game long enough to win 6-3.

A quick post here before I head out for the weekend.

One of my favorite Gorilla Monsoon sayings from back in the 80’s was when he said someone was “cleaning house” in the ring. It usually happened during a tag-team match or a battle royal when the fan favorite made a comeback.

My friend Justin and I have adopted the term and use it when someone completely cleans off their plate during a meal. Now I think the Arizona Diamondbacks can adopt the term “cleaning house” as well.

The Colorado Rockies are starting to scare some teams. The Rockies offense powered them to a 7-3 victory over the San Francisco Giants at Coors Field on Thursday night.

I was looking at the box score of the Giants-Dodgers game today, and aside from the fact that the Dodgers are thumping the Giants, I noticed that Jamey Carroll was having a big day (2-for-2 with a couple of walks and three runs scored), and it got me thinking about how much Carroll has changed since he first came up in 2002.

Nobody can accuse me of being hypercritical of the San Francisco Giants' management, including the Bay Area's two most bullet-ridden targets.

For all his warts, I've always believed general manager Brian Sabean's gotten more heat than is justifiable. Meanwhile, Bruce Bochy got the 2009 team to overachieve, which is usually evidence of a good manager.

Consequently, somewhere in Bleacher Report's vast archives, I'm on record as supporting the two-year extensions both men received.

Through his years in the minor leagues, San Diego Padres officials were excited about young Kyle Blanks.

He was a monster of a young man, could hit the longest home runs, but could do something that a whole lot of people wouldn't expect from someone his size, he was fast.

Coming into his first major league season in 2009, the Padres had high hopes for Blanks and what he brought to the lineup. They were hoping that having someone of his size and talent would provide some form of protection in the lineup for first baseman Adrian Gonzalez.

*Please note this article was written before Matt Kemp was inserted into the Dodgers’ lineup last night. However, the only reason Kemp was inserted into the lineup was because Manny Ramirez had an injury, so the basis of my article hasn’t changed.

Benching a star player one game I can understand. Two games I could still somewhat comprehend. But three games? That seems a little extreme to me.

The Colorado Rockies are not a team that is built around one or two superstars.