Before last night's game, Jim Tracy held another closed door meeting with his players. It's the fourth this season, and this one was different:
↵↵↵“Accountability … that’s basically it,” said one player, when asked to characterize the meeting.
↵Aside from a few comments by Troy Tulowitzki, Tracy did all of the talking. Or shoudl [sic] we say yelling? According to players, Tracy shed his mild-mannered, ultra-patient persona and turned up the volume during the 30-minute meeting.
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It didn't help last night, as the Rockies grasped defeat from the jaws of victory. Esmil Rogers pitched a fine 6 1/3 innings, holding the Diamondbacks to one run. Matt Reynolds and Matt Belisle held things down for the seventh and eighth innings until Huston Street entered the game. This year's Street has evoked images of Brian Fuentes, and yesterday's game did nothing to stop those images from appearing. Street allowed a walk and a single, but then he followed it with back-to-back swinging strikeouts. It shouldn't be hard to get the third out, but Street made it so. A double to right field tied the game. Joe Beimel pitched the 10th and gave up the walkoff double to Kelly Johnson.
↵The playoffs keep slipping away as Tracy's 30 or so wins needed to make the postseason appear ever smaller in the rear-view mirror. Something tells me that a fifth closed door meeting wouldn't change much.
↵On Tap For Today
↵-The Rockies send Ubaldo Jimenez to the mound today against the Diamondbacks' Barry Enright. Game time is 6:10 p.m. MT.
↵-The Broncos host the Lions in their first preseason game tonight. Kickoff is around 7:00 p.m MT.
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