behind the dugout

Troy Tulowitzki, Ubaldo Jimenez and Manny Corpas are three members of the 2006 Tulsa Drillers team that have gone on to success in the major leagues.

The 2006 Drillers team railroaded everyone on their way to a first half divisional title and had it not been for promotions throughout the Rockies organization likely would have captured the Texas League crown.

Another member of that team has flirted with big league playing time. Chris Iannetta, a catcher drafted out of UNC, was a key member of that Drillers team compiling a .321/.418/.622 line while knocking in 48 runs and homering 11 times during his 44 game stay in Tulsa.

Iannetta was promoted to Colorado Springs midway into that season and there the numbers kept adding up, even finishing with a .351 average at the Triple-A level, before appearing in 21 big league games at the end of the season.

Last season Ianneta was given a the chance to win over the starting catchers job. Despite nice spring numbers Iannetta could never seem to get anything going at the plate and found himself playing second fiddle to Yorvit Torrealba as the Rockies went on a post season run.

There were whispers that Iannetta didn’t have the drive to be at the big league level while others thought that his minor league success was just an aberration of being on strong teams and that Iannetta was nothing more then a backup catcher.

Perhaps some of that reached Iannetta and of late the 25-year-old catcher was on quite a stretch in his last six games hitting .450 and upping his season average to .353. This time it’s Iannnetta that is taking away playing time for Torrealba who is hitting just .235 on the season and mired in a 1-for-11 slump.

It’s not just that Iannetta is hitting for average he has also recorded 10 extra base hits in his 51 trips to the plate that adds up to a .686 slugging percentage and a 1.100 on-base plus slugging.

With the Rockies 9 games out of first and 8 games under .500 manager Clint Hurdle is more then willing to stick with the hot hand at this point in hopes of turning this thing around.

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For those who are unaware you can now send your name to the moon as part of NASA’s planned revisit.