The season couldn’t get much worse for the Colorado Rockies, but it certainly did for Christian Friedrich. Suffering what an MRI revealed to be a stress fracture in his lower back, the rookie pitcher is out for the season. I’m surprised the entire roster isn’t suffering from stress fractures of their dignity as the team sinks lower and lower into the basement with the Houston Astros.
Friedrich is unarguably the “star” of the rotation, posting a 5-8 record and a 6.17 ERA before his current trip to the DL, which will move his next start into the 2013 season. The even more unfortunate part is, now that Friedrich will be on the couch at home, someone else has to step up and fill a hole in the most depleted rotation in baseball. Swiss cheese has less holes than the Rockies pitching roster, and any triple-A player, be it Guillermo Moscoso or Rob Scahill, will not be able to do anything more than just cut the cheese as all the pitchers on the Rockies roster are either injured or flat out stink.
For Friedrich, he at least gets to sit out the rest of this disaster, and I’m sure there has to be some relief for him as he went 1-3 in July with a 7.77 ERA. Christian has played respectably since his call up, but he may very likely have to perform like a star in preseason to make the team again as a number five starter.
That is, of course, based solely on GM Dan O’Dowd not bungling the offseason and the hot stove period. Otherwise, Friedrich may very well be the Rockies number two or three guy after spring training, if the rotation doesn’t become the sole focus of the offseason. Dick Monfort has assured the fans (because we wanted to hear it so bad) that O’Dowd would return as GM — hooray! The fans want the team to markedly improve, not experience slightly less mediocrity so that O’Dowd can remain in the front office.
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