Larry Brown Sports

The San Diego Padres and Colorado Rockies played into extra innings on Thursday night, and the umpiring crew may have determined the outcome of the game. Or maybe they didn’t. Well, they certainly made things more confusing than they had to be.

As you can see from the GIF above that GameReax shared with us, Yasmani Grandal hit a ground ball to third with the bases loaded in the top of the 12th inning. Rockies third baseman Nolan Arenado tried to get the force out at third and fire to first for an inning-ending double play, and he almost pulled it off. Chase Headley scored the go-ahead run when the runner was called out at third and safe at first.

The problem was the umpires got it backwards. The runner at third should have been safe, but third base umpire Cory Blaser called him out despite the fact that Arenado released the ball well before he touched the bag. Then, first base umpire Ed Hickox called the runner safe at first when the throw beat him by about a step. Here’s a video of the play:

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The Colorado Rockies hosted several members of the Denver Broncos for Tuesday night’s game against the New York Yankees at Coors Field. To say that some of them were dressed to kill would be the understatement of the century.

In the spirit of saving the best for last, we’ll start by mentioning how great Von Miller’s shirt was. As one Reddit user pointed out after the photo you see above was posted on the social media site, it looked like the type of shirt where if you stare at it long enough a 3-D image will pop out. I don’t think it works though — I tried for about 10 minutes.

On to more important things. How fresh did Peyton Manning look? Tom Brady can have his hipster glasses and his GQ photo shoots. Manning took batting practice at Coors Field wearing an outfit that we can only speculate was picked out by Arnold Palmer and a kindergarten student.

And you thought NBA players like this guy had a sense of fashion? Peyton absolutely killed it on Tuesday night. If you think Colorado’s 2-0 win was a coincidence on a night where Manning looked like that, you’re an idiot.

The Colorado Rockies and New York Mets are playing a double-header Tuesday after Monday’s game at Coors Field was snowed out. If you look at the pictures, it’s a wonder how they were able to clear out all the snow blanketing the stadium in time to play Tuesday.

Coors Field is somewhere under there: twitter.com/MLB/status/324…

— MLB (@MLB) April 16, 2013

Approximately 150 workers helped shovel an estimated eight inches of snow off the field. The Denver Post says the grounds crew arrived at 5:30 a.m. to begin working on the field. They have some electric coils that helped melt a few inches, but the rest of the work was done by shoveling. Team owner Dick Monfort, GM Dan O’Dowd, Mets GM Sandy Alderson, and some coaches even helped shovel the snow.

The temperature at the start of the game was 39 degrees, which is tied for 10th-coldest in the team’s history. It was even lower than that midway through the first game.

This has been a road trip full of bad weather for the Mets. They were in Minnesota previously and saw their Sunday game with the Twins postponed because of the weather. Now they’re experiencing more of the same in Denver.

The photo below is from Monday:

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The Rockies are wrapping up a disappointing season and decided Sunday was the right time to haze their rookies. And why not? They had just set a franchise record with 25 hits in a 19-3 win over the hapless Astros.

The Rox went with the Star Wars theme, which seems to be popular in baseball circles this year. In case you were curious, Troy Renck says Tommy Field dressed up as Yoda, and that Edgmer Escalona was Chewbaca. Sadly for him, his mask was not movie quality. At least it was much better than getting the Lady Gaga treatment.

Ubaldo Jimenez was one of the best stories of the baseball season last year. The former Rockies pitcher went 15-1 in 18 starts before the All-Star break and was nearly unbeatable. He had a sub-1.00 ERA in June and had thrown a no-hitter. He rode a fastball in the upper-90s with crazy movement and a wicked breaking ball to unprecedented Coors Field success for a pitcher. Ubaldo finished the year 19-8 with a 2.88 ERA. He had established himself as an ace in the National League and he was expected to anchor the Rockies’ staff for the future. But it all changed this season.

Ubaldo entered the year reportedly dissatisfied with his contract situation. He had seen the franchise give Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez major contract extensions while he remained signed to a team-friendly deal. He got rocked on Opening Day and ended up on the disabled list with a finger injury. Turns out he was battling other nagging injuries since spring training, and it looks like a lack of proper preparation prior to the season is to blame.

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During the Phillies-Rockies game Wednesday night in Philadelphia, the broadcasting crew got into a debate about Todd Helton’s Hall of Fame credentials. Play-by-play man Dave O’Brien said that many people feel Helton playing at Coors Field will hurt his case because the altitude in Denver resulted in astronomical offensive numbers. Analyst and former All-Star Nomar Garciaparra disagreed, going off on a rant where he said the humidor should be illegal.

“It’s not his fault that’s the way it is there at Coors Field or let alone balls put in a humidor which I think is illegal,” Garciaparra argued. “You don’t adjust the equipment because of the ballpark. If there’s an issue with the ballpark, you shouldn’t have a ballpark there. If you’re going to have to adjust, if you’re going to determine guys’ value whether they’re worth the Hall of Fame because it happens to be in a place where there’s altitude, then you’re going to have to make adjustments to all the ballparks. ‘Well it doesn’t count because Fenway’s wall is so much closer than somewhere else.’ Right field at Yankee Stadium, maybe we’ll use balls that don’t count when they fly out that far, we’ll use a humidor there. You’re going to have start making adjustments, so this shouldn’t happen just because of the surroundings of a ballpark.”

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The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Colorado Rockies 4-3 in 14 innings Friday night. Both teams were shutout from the 7th inning on until the Pirates won things on a Jose Tabata walkoff double off the wall in right field.

The big question after the game was why the Rockies decided to pitch to Tabata with two outs and a man on in the 14th when relief pitcher Garrett Olson was on deck. Pittsburgh players were convinced a mind game intended to trick Colorado worked.

As Pirates writer Colin Dunlap explained, Pittsburgh sent Andrew McCutchen on deck even though he was really in the hole. They think seeing McCutchen on deck was enough to convince Colorado to throw to Tabata even though the right move would have been walking him to face the pitcher.

Tabata is Pittsburgh’s leadoff hitter and he’s batting .344 on the season. Olson is a relief pitcher who hardly ever bats. Nice call Jim Tracy, or maybe he just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible after the long night.