Whatever I didn't do for the Sox this year, I managed to do for the Colorado Rockies, as they won all three games I attended. Today, they came back from a 7-0 deficit to win 9-8, in a game that featured two grand slams, a pinch-hit, game-winning homer, and perhaps
the worst start I've ever witnessed.
Making his big-league debut, Colorado's Juan Morillo started off by walking Marcus Giles on four straight pitches. Then he walked Edgar Renteria on five pitches. Chipper Jones walked on five pitches. Morillo started off Andruw Jones with a strike, but then hit him with his next pitch to drive in a run. Brian McCann followed with a grand slam.
At that point, Morillo had allowed five runs on one hit. I'd never seen anything like it in person, and I imagine the only thing in recent history to surpass it was Kansas City rookie
Miguel Ascensio's debut against the White Sox on April 6, 2002. Ascensio came into the game in the eighth inning and walked Kenny Lofton, Ray Durham, Frank Thomas and Magglio Ordonez using the bare minimum of 16 pitches. One of them was a wild pitch.
Morillo wasn't that bad, as he settled down to throw four innings while only allowing one more run. McCann must have hit an Ed Farmer-grade rally-killing homer.
I'll be doing some catch-up work on Monday night, and posting will resume in earnest on Tuesday. In the meantime, I'd like to thank the Chicago Tribune's John Kass for his generous mention of Sox Machine
in his Friday column.