behind the dugout

When the Colorado Rockies went on a win streak prior to the trade deadline it may have made the front office think twice about dealing away players. No players left Colorado at the deadline. Even closer Brian Fuentes, the most obvious trading chip, was held.

While it could be said that the Rockies didn’t get the return on Fuentes they were hoping for it’s also worth noting that Colorado is playing in the NL West. For the past five years the NL West has been the place to be if  you think playing .500 baseball deserves you the right to play in October.

In the last ten days the Rockies (66-74 following last nights win) have gained four games on divison leading Arizona to move from 9 games back to just 5.

To give perspective on how close the Rockies are to taking the West, the Boston Red Sox are still believed to be a serious contender to Tampa Bay in the AL East and they just moved to 4 back of the Rays.

So yeah. The Rockies cannot be ruled out. Besides they aren’t chasing the Rays. They are chasing the Diamondbacks (70-68), a team who after a strong start to the year have been playing just enough to get by.

It may not be easy to cut a five game deficit to zero in just a matter of 3 weeks as Arizona has 24 games left, Colorado 22 but theres still time.

Arizona and Colorado still play each other six times in September including a three game series in Arizona to finish the season.

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Last season when the Rockies went on their run to finish the season a lot of credit was given to Troy Tulowitzki and while Tulo has been more then solid over the last month of play this year another youngster in Ian Stewart has been a huge driving force in the Rockies resurgence. Stewart has hit .298 with 5 home runs with 20 RBI over the last month compiling a .932 OPS. Those numbers along with veteran Brad Hawpe’s (1.011 OPS, 5 home runs, 21 RBI) have really put a charge into the Colorado offense.