Rockies Not Lying Around

According to the Rockies website, they’re not resting on their laurels during the layoff:

“It’s groundbreaking,” Hurdle deadpanned when asked about his strategy.

“The only other option that I mentioned to somebody else that is much smarter than me is we could have lost a couple more games,” Hurdle said. “We could have gotten on a plane, we could’ve made another flight.

“That would have really cut down on this downtime, and maybe put us in a position where we could’ve had four months of downtime.”

So how does one fill the rest of the time? Here’s the schedule, after Wednesday’s workout of batting practice and fielding, with pitchers working bullpen sessions with the option of throwing breaking pitches:

• Thursday — Off.

• Friday — The Rockies will play a simulated game of a minimum of four innings, with the hitters facing pitchers who are throwing at full speed. The coaches will implement situational defense and pitchers will work against the running game.

Pitching coach Bob Apodaca said left-hander Jeff Francis, who has been dominant in the postseason (2-0, 2.13 ERA in two starts) and is likely to start Game 1, is scheduled to pitch on Friday.

• Saturday — They will play a simulated game of at least seven innings. Hitters will actually swing, rather than just look at pitches as they may be asked to Friday, and run out of the batter’s box.

“The more we put into it, the more we get out of it,” Hurdle said.

• Sunday — Bad weather is forecast, but the Rockies are looking at a simulated game of at least 7 1/2 innings. Fielders will make plays, but there will be no baserunning.

• Monday — The club will have its regular batting practice/pregame fielding session, and then fly to the city of the American League champion.

Last year, the Tigers entered the World Series as heavy favorites, but after a six-day layoff, they lost to the Cardinals in five games. Hurdle is aware of that, but he puts it in perspective.

“I’ve already had six or seven people bring to my attention that the Tigers had a long layoff last year and didn’t play very well,” Hurdle said. “And I just kind of shared with them that there have been 10 teams that have had layoffs of five days or more, and seven of them have actually won the World Series.

70%. Not bad odds. Meanwhile, Joe Torre declined a 33% paycut from the Yankees. Understandable. No way to reward 12 years of Great Service than by a slight. That said, it’s about time for Joe to move on anyway. Still, they could have done that without devaluing him.