MEDIA CLIPS – April 10, 2016

Rockies fall behind early, can’t recover

By AJ Cassavell and Thomas Harding / MLB.com | @ajcassavell / @harding_at_mlb | April 10th 2016

DENVER -- Remember that season-opening scoreless drought? As far as the Padres are concerned, it's ancient history at this point.

The San Diego offense responded emphatically from its early season struggles, reaching new heights in a 16-3 victory over the Rockies on Saturday night. With 29 runs in their past two games, the Padres set a franchise scoring record for a two-game stretch. Not bad for a club that opened the season with a 30-inning scoreless streak.

"You've seen what we've done these last two games -- we've got a lot of really good hitters here," said Padres first baseman , who a mammoth home to straightaway center in the ninth. "The only people that were panicking were people outside the clubhouse."

Matt Kemp swatted two homers -- his fourth career multi-homer game against the Rockies and second at -- and drove in six runs. launched the second of the Padres' four homers with a three-run shot off Jorge

De La Rosa, who gave up seven runs in four innings.

"There's nothing wrong with him physically," Rockies Walt Weiss said of De La Rosa. "It looked like a struggle, mostly, throughout -- second inning-on."

The run production made a winner of one-time Rockies lefty Drew Pomeranz (1-0), who struck out seven and gave up two runs in five innings.

"Everything was working pretty good," Pomeranz said. " location both sides, cutter, changeup, curveball -- was all really good tonight." 1

The crowd of 35,177 also witnessed the first Major League game in which Rockies rookie Trevor Story did not homer. His homers in the first four games tied him with (1971), Mark McGwire (1998), Nelson Cruz (2011) and Chris Davis (2013) for longest such streak to begin a season.

MOMENTS THAT MATTERED

Can't stop Kemp: No hitter has more at-bats against De La Rosa than Kemp -- and no hitter has had quite as much success against the veteran left-hander, either. With his two home runs Saturday, Kemp is now batting .471 with seven homers and 14 extra-base hits in 51 at-bats against De La Rosa. More >

April is the cruelest month: The last three years, De La Rosa has posted first-month ERAs of 4.18, 5.23 and 11.57. So this year's 12.46 in two starts may disappoint the Rockies' fans, but it shouldn't surprise them. The low point came before the runs. In a second inning that saw him walk the bases loaded, he needed nine pitches to retire Pomeranz on a grounder to the mound. Afterward, De La Rosa burst through the Rockies' clubhouse door and was unavailable to reporters. De La

Rosa wasn't alone in his struggles. The bullpen has had trouble taking innings the starters couldn't cover, and the team has a 9.20 ERA.

"A lot can be done," Rockies catcher Nick Hundley said. "We can call better pitches. We can execute locations better, up and down the staff and throughout the bullpen. We can put ourselves in better positions to be successful. We can get ahead, make it easy on ourselves.

"There are a lot of things we can do. It's early and we've got to stay positive. You're not going to go hang your head in the sand. It's April 9. We've got to go out and go grind."

A first for everything: Padres rookie Jabari Blash picked up his first Major League hit Saturday evening, a pinch-hit laser into the left-center field gap. Blash, known for his prodigious power, is a Rule 5 selection, who spent the previous six seasons in the Mariners organization, before making his big league debut Monday. Off the bat, the ball looked like it had a chance to leave the yard, before hopping against the wall.

"The first thought in my head was, 'Dang, you couldn't even get it out at Coors Field?'" Blash said with a wry grin.

More of this, please: Rockies righty Miguel Castro is a weapon, if the team can give him a lead. In the seventh, Weiss gave him some work and he delivered his 96-98 mph fastball and 81 mph slider in a spotless inning. On the final pitch, a

98 mph fastball, the Padres' Carlos Villanueva was stepping out of the box as plate umpire Jim Joyce was calling strike three to end an eight-pitch inning. Castro returned for the next inning and struck out Jon Jay, Melvin Upton Jr. and Kemp.

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QUOTABLE

"We have everything. We have table-setters. We have speed. We have some thump in the middle of the lineup, righties lefties. We're a pretty balanced offense." - Spangenberg said.

"Offensively, I guess we don't score between one and nine runs a game." - Padres manager said.

"We need to play better baseball, I need to play better baseball. It's kind of hard for me to talk about because I'm not really doing my job great right now. I know it's early, but these things can't happen. We understand it's a long road, but we need to make sure we nip this in the bud and stop having games like this." -- Rockies third baseman Nolan Arenado, hitting

.158 in 19 at-bats.

SOUND SMART WITH YOUR FRIENDS

With his six RBIs on Saturday night, Kemp has now driven in 10 runs this series -- a career high. Plus, he still has

Sunday's finale to set a bit of Padres history. The franchise record for RBIs in a three-game set is 11, accomplished by

Ryan Klesko in May 2001 against Houston.

REPLAY REVIEW

The Rockies gained a key out in the third when Upton was originally called safe at second, after being caught on De La

Rosa's pickoff move to first base. Replay showed that first baseman Mark Reynolds' throw and DJ

LeMahieu's tag were in time. The call held Kemp's first homer to a solo shot.

The Rockies succeeded on another challenge in the sixth, when replay showed that Reynolds stayed in contact with the bag while receiving reliever Jason Gurka's throw on Spangenberg's soft comebacker.

Colorado made it a replay challenge hat trick in the sixth, when a review showed that LeMahieu's throw beat Derek

Norris to the bag to end the inning.

WHAT'S NEXT

Padres: James Shields takes the hill a day earlier than expected because of Tyson Ross' shoulder injury -- but on normal rest thanks to Thursday's off-day. Shields is 6-1 lifetime against the Rockies and was sharp in his first start of the season.

But one rough inning did him in, and he took the loss against the Dodgers.

Rockies: Righty Chad Bettis struggled after being given a four-run lead at Arizona in his first outing. He'll face the Padres at Coors Field (where he was 4-3 with a 4.99 ERA in 11 starts last year) in the series finale Sunday at 2:10 p.m.

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Story’s homer streak ends in loss to Padres

By Thomas Harding / MLB.com | @harding_at_mlb | April 10th 2016

DENVER -- The streak is over, but even if Rockies rookie shortstop Trevor Story had hit one, he'd have felt the same disappointment in Saturday night's result -- a 16-3 loss to the Padres.

Story became the first rookie to homer in the first four games of his career and the fifth player to go deep in the first four -- no player has ever started with a five-game homer run.

Story has homered six times, including twice in two of the games. But it ended Saturday, when he went 1-for-5 with three .

"I enjoyed it -- mostly, the games we won," Story said. "I didn't enjoy it that much when we lost. It was cool.

"I wouldn't say that I was putting pressure on myself to do that. [But] it's kind of a relief."

Story, batting second -- behind either or DJ LeMahieu and ahead of Carlos Gonzalez -- is hitting .333

(8-for-24) with two singles and 11 RBIs. He'll go down in history with Willie Mays (1971), Mark McGwire (1998), Nelson

Cruz (2011) and Chris Davis(2013) to homer in the first four games of a season.

Story's two homers Monday at Arizona established a first for a player making his Major League debut in an opener.

"I'm not sure, he'd probably like to hit a homer every game," Rockies manager Walt Weiss said. "But it's a heck of a run."

But the Rockies are 2-3, and that record is the one on Story's mind.

"That's what it's all about," he said. "Personal achievements are cool and everything. But that's not why we're here. We're here to win. If we don't do the job that night, then we're not very happy."

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Rockies teammates wowed by Story’s start

By Thomas Harding / MLB.com | @harding_at_mlb | April 9th 2016

DENVER -- Players can be hard to impress, since they've been achieving amazing feats their entire athletic lives. But outfielder Carlos Gonzalez says even Rockies teammates are taking a few moments to get caught up in the debut of shortstop Trevor Story, who entered Saturday's game with the Padres having homered in all four games, six times total.

Story homered twice Friday in the home opener, a 13-6 loss to the Padres.

"After he hit his first homer, during a pitching change, I go to center field and Charlie Blackmon is like," Gonzalez said, imitating Blackmon's slack-jawed expression. "I was like, 'This is crazy.'

"Then he hit another one, and I was like, 'What the …'"

Outfielder Brandon Barnes said he couldn't help notice Story Fever in downtown Denver.

"I was driving here today, and there was a bar that had writing on the side of it that said, 'Trevor Story is on pace to hit 127 home runs,' or something like that, 'Go Rockies,'" Barnes said. "I was like, now you've got to change that to 243.

"The kid's been here one day and he's already got signs up."

First baseman Ben Paulsen, who had a locker beside Story in the Rockies' clubhouse, was joking about the Twitter account of Giants outfielder Hunter Pence. The profile says, "I'm @BusterPosey's good friend." Well, @Benjaminpaulsen can say the same about @TrevorStory2.

"You know, I'm Trevor's friend," Paulsen says, smiling and looking over at Story, who nodded. "I mean, really. We were workout partners this winter. We've been friends a long time."

Worth noting:

• Rockies righty relief Jason Motte, who suffered a right shoulder strain late in , said Saturday he should soon begin throwing, but he'll leave the Rockies to do it at the team's complex in Arizona. "I know next week the team is going to Chicago, but I saw the weather there today," Motte said, referring to the game with the Indians with a 32- degree game time temperature. "The weather there is not on-point for starting a throwing program."

• Rockies right-hander , on the disabled list with an abdominal strain, had his rehab start for Modesto pushed back by rain in Stockton, Calif., on Saturday. He will start Sunday, instead.

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Colorado Rockies suffer ‘unacceptable’ 16-3 loss to The Rockies dropped their second straight to San Diego in one of the uglier games in recent memory.

By Jordan Freemyer / Purple Row | @jfreemyer | April 10th 2016

It may just be two games, but the are fed up with losing after Saturday's 16-3 loss to the San Diego

Padres at Coors Field.

"This is unacceptable," Rockies third baseman Nolan Arenado said. "This is a thing you can't let happen. We need to play better baseball, I need to play better baseball."

After a blistering hot spring that saw him hit at a .542 clip in the Cactus League, Arenado is just 3-for-19 in the first five games of the regular season, though he has walked three times and struck out just once. He was 0-for-3 with a walk on

Saturday.

"We need to make sure we nip this in the bud and stop having games like this," Arenado said.

However, the real issue for the Rockies Saturday and throughout the first week of the season has been pitching. On

Saturday, it was Jorge De La Rosa who struggled for Colorado, lasting just four innings and allowing seven runs, all earned, on seven hits with five walks and three strikeouts. He threw 97 pitches in his four innings of work, 54 for strikes and allowed three home runs.

"Those guys have faced him a lot," Rockies catcher Nick Hundley said about his battery mate. "We were getting behind in counts, working way harder than we needed to."

The Rockies were counting on De La Rosa, a key part of their rotation for the better part of a decade now, to pick up the slack after Jordan Lyles lasted just 3⅓ innings in Friday's home opener.

"You've got to get more than three and four inning starts," Rockies manager Walt Weiss said. "The pen's definitely been stretched already."

That stretched bullpen did not help matters after De La Rosa's departure, as Jason Gurka allowed three runs on six hits in his two innings of work and veterans Chad Qualls and Boone Logan combined to allow six runs in the ninth. Hundley, who worked all nine innings behind the plate on Saturday, said that while the pitching has not been to par yet in 2016 there are plenty of small things that can help fix the problem.

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"A lot can be done," Hundley said. "We can call better pitches; we can execute locations better up and down the staff and throughout the bullpen."

One specific Hundley pointed to was getting ahead in counts as right-hander Tyler Chatwood did in Wednesday's

4-3 win in Arizona.

"The best start we've had was (Chatwood's) and it seemed like he was ahead in every count, that's what we need to continue to preach, continue to execute," Hundley said.

One bright spot on the mound Saturday was 21-year-old reliever Miguel Castro, who retired all six Padres he faced, four by , in his two innings of work. Hundley said the Rockies are trying to take positives from performance's like

Castro's and solace in the fact that things are still in the early going of the 2016 season.

"It's early and we have to stay positive," Hundley said. "You can't go and hide your head in the sand, it's April 9th."

The biggest positive of the first five games for the Rockies has been the performance of rookie shortstop Trevor Story, who hit six home runs in the first four games of 2016 before going 1-for-5 with three strikeouts on Saturday. Story said that while he was pleased with his start to his career, he wants more than the team's 2-3 record.

"Personal achievements are cool and everything, but that's not why we're here. We’re here to win," Story said.

More than anything, the Rockies are trying keep in mind that while the two losses to San Diego currently constitute 40 percent of their season, they are but a small sample in the 162-game grind that is to come over the next six months.

"It's only two games that have been really bad, and yeah we can fix this easily," Arenado said.

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Matt Kemp, San Diego Padres score digit runs again, sprint past Colorado Rockies 16-3 It's been a tough couple of home games to open up the 2016 season for the Colorado Rockies.

By Bobby DeMuro / Purple Row | @BobbyDeMuro | April 9th 2016

Matt Kemp went 3-for-5 with two home runs and six RBIs, and the San Diego Padres defeated the Colorado Rockies 16-3 on the back of 19 hits on Saturday night, the visitors' second-straight offensive outburst at Coors Field.

It took Jorge De La Rosa 52 pitches to work through the first two innings of the game but he came away unscathed, as did his opponent Drew Pomeranz, and the two clubs entered the third inning in a scoreless tie. At that point, though, the Padres took control thanks to a long solo home run from Matt Kemp on a 2-0 pitch that put the first run on the board in

San Diego's favor.

That was all De La Rosa allowed in the third, but the fourth inning would prove troublesome; in it, Cory Spangenberg and

Kemp each hit three-run home runs off the Rockies' ace, both over the home team's new fence in right field.

The Rockies fought to get two runs back in the bottom of the fourth. After Nolan Arenado walked, Mark Reynolds doubled to put the Rockies' third baseman on third base. A Ryan Raburn sacrifice fly brought Arenado home, and then a wild pitch during Nick Hundley's at-bat scored Reynolds, and the Rockies tightened the game to a 7-2 deficit.

It remained that way for a full inning, until the top of the sixth when the Padres put up three more runs off Rockies reliever

Jason Gurka. Kemp, again, was in the middle of it, slapping a single up the middle with the bases loaded to score two runs. Adam Rosales then hit his own RBI single to bring in the Padres' tenth run of the game.

The Rockies got one back in the bottom of the seventh, when Carlos Gonzalez drove in DJ LeMahieu with an RBI single off Padres reliever Carlos Villanueva.

One bright spot for Colorado late in the game was relief pitcher Miguel Castro; the young reliever tossed two scoreless frames in relief of De La Rosa and Gurka, allowing no base runners across the seventh and eighth innings, striking out four Padres while consistently touching the upper 90s on the radar gun.

The Padres weren't done, though. In the top of the ninth inning, Wil Myers crushed a solo home run off reliever Chad

Qualls to make the game 11-3 in San Diego's favor. A twelfth run scored in the ninth after throwing errors by both Trevor

Story and Mark Reynolds, putting men on first and second and Travis Jankowski up against Rockies reliever Boone

Logan with still just one out in the inning.

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After Jankowski walked, a Jon Jay double cleared the bases, giving the Padres 15 runs, and then a single by Christian

Bethancourt drove in Jay to make the game 16-3 in favor of the Friars.

This was the first time the Padres scored at least 15 runs in a game since August of 2011.

The Rockies and Padres meet again on Sunday afternoon, with Chad Bettis facing James Shields for San Diego.

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Can Nolan Arenado be a legitimate MVP candidate while playing for Rockies? To catch Bryce Harper in MVP voting, Arenado will need to have a season impossible to ignore

By Mark Kiszla and Nick Groke / The Denver Post | @markkiszla / @nickgroke | April 9th 2016

Kiz: Nolan Arenado hogged all the pomp and most of the circumstance during the home-opener celebration at Coors

Field. He was handed a Gold Glove, Silver Slugger and so many trophies, somebody should have also given him a wheel barrel to cart 'em all home. This guy is good. But stuck in the lost time zone on a last-place team, can Arenado be so spectacular as to make a run at MVP of the ?

Groke: Kiz-erino, have you seen the lack of respect already shown Arenado this season? MLB Network ranked the three- time Gold Glove winner as the sixth-best third baseman in baseball. Not overall position players, mind you. Just third basemen. That's nuts. In my eyes, he is the best third baseman in the National League. But to catch Bryce Harper in MVP voting, he will need to put together not just a spectacular season, but one that is impossible to ignore.

Kiz: Before was more associated with the letters MVP than PED, he was recognized as the best player in the with the last-place Rangers in 2003. Arenado, however, must deal with a double whammy.

Not only is his team disrespected, so is his ballpark. Raising the fences in Coors Field might help Colorado pitchers, but it won't help Arenado with the nationwide perception that any hitter can have a big year at altitude.

Groke: Arenado hit more home runs on the road (22) last season than at cozy Coors Field (20). Boom. End of argument.

Well, it should be. But the altitude bias will always exist. What will get Arenado the most attention is his defense. If he is on highlight reels every night, like he was the past two seasons, people in Peoria will notice. It may be sacrilege to say, but Arenado could be a better defensive player than Brooks Robinson. Yes, I said it.

Kiz: Arenado can get in the MVP hunt, provided two things happen: 1) He must bump up his on-base percentage in the vicinity of .400 to please the voters who lean on analytics, and 2) The Rockies must hang in the playoff race deep into the summer. I'm confident Arenado can do his part. But a team that figures to lose 90 games is the problem. My bold prediction: Arenado will win the MVP during his career. I'm not so sure he will be wearing a Colorado uniform when it happens.

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Matt Kemp clears Coors Field's fence twice as Padres rout Rockies For second straight game, San Diego pounds Colorado pitchers for double-digit run

By Nick Groke / The Denver Post | @nickgroke | April 9th 2016

The five pitchers Matt Kemp has faced most often in his 12-year career include four (Madison

Bumgarner among them) and a rattled Rockies southpaw.

On Saturday, in his 50th career at-bat against Jorge De La Rosa, the 31-year-old San Diego Padres right fielder pounded a 448-foot solo home run to left field. One inning later, Kemp nailed another homer, a three-run shot well over Coors

Field's newly built wall in right-center field.

The Rockies can build all the walls they want. They won't stop Kemp.

The Padres, after setting a major-league record with 30 scoreless innings to begin the season, broke out again against the Rockies, bombarding their way to a 16-3 blowout victory in front of 35,177 fans in Lower Downtown.

Kemp could build himself a statue at 20th and Blake. He has collected eight multiple-home run games in his career — and four came against the Rockies.

Against De La Rosa, Kemp has a .471 average (24-of-51) with seven home runs and 22 RBIs, far better than his numbers against , Matt Cain, Tim Lincecum and Bumgarner, his other most-seen foes.

In two games to start a weekend series, the Padres have outscored the Rockies 29-9 and outhit them 37-17. Rockies rookie shortstop Trevor Story's home run barrage finally came to an end, snapping his major-league record four-game, six-homer streak to start a career.

Colorado manager Walt Weiss knew the Rockies needed their No. 1 pitcher to stop a slide.

"We need him to put some zeros up and get deep in the game," Weiss said of De La Rosa before the game. He did neither.

Kemp's three-run homer in the fourth inning helped the Padres bat around the order. They scored six runs in the inning, started by Cory Spangenberg's three-run homer off De La Rosa to right-center.

Spangenberg's looper to the bullpen was the first test of Coors Field's new outfield fence, which the Rockies raised by nearly 9 feet to 16 feet, 6 inches this season. A higher wall, they hoped, would cut down on offensive numbers in

Colorado.

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De La Rosa lasted just four innings after he gave up seven runs on seven hits. He left the clubhouse after the game, not talking to reporters.

"It looked like a struggle for him throughout," Weiss said. "There was no way he could go back (for the fifth inning)."

De La Rosa's start sent prospect hounds looking at minor-league box scores for hope.

Jeff Hoffman, a 23-year-old right-hander the Rockies got from Toronto in the trade, pitched six scoreless innings, with six strikeouts, in his debut for -A Albuquerque. , a promising right-hander, struck out six in six innings Friday in his debut for Double-A Hartford.

In five games this young season, the Rockies' starting pitchers have an 8.75 ERA, second-worst in baseball.

"We're going to continue to find ways to make it not so offensive a park," Rockies owner Dick Monfort said of Coors

Fields' new fences Friday before the home opener. "Part of that, there's nothing we can do about. But if there are things we can do to take some of the offense away from it, that's what we should try to do."

Maybe a 30-foot fence isn't a bad idea.

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Walt Weiss adjusts Rockies' lineup against lefty Drew Pomeranz Jon Gray update; San Diego Padres' rotation change

By Nick Groke / The Denver Post | @nickgroke | April 9th 2016

Drew Pomeranz, the 6-foot-6 left-hander who breezed through Colorado earlier in his career, returned to Coors Field on

Saturday. And the Rockies responded by shuffling their lineup.

Manager Walt Weiss swapped out two regulars, left-swinging center fielder Charlie Blackmon and left fielder Gerardo

Parra. Weiss replaced them with righties Brandon Barnes and Ryan Raburn.

With more right-handed options this season, Weiss is trying to exploit heavily tilted left-on-right matchups.

Pomeranz in his career has a strikeout-to-walk ratio more than double against lefties (3.79) as against righties (1.65).

Lefty hitters have a .174 average against him, while righties hit .264.

"It's not like we will go with a platoon lineup all the time," Weiss said. "But with certain lefties who have extreme splits that are tough on lefties, I'll make some wholesale changes and go very right-handed."

Saturday, that also meant Mark Reynolds played first base instead of Ben Paulsen. Weiss used the same lineup earlier in the week against Arizona's , in a game the Rockies won 4-3.

And with Blackmon on the bench, second baseman DJ LeMahieu jumped from the eighth spot in the order to leadoff, as he did against Corbin.

"It's what Walt told me in spring training, to be ready for anything," said LeMahieu, who entered Saturday hitting .571 (8- for-14), including multihit outings in each of his four games.

"I don't think it fazes him," Weiss said of moving LeMahieu around.

JON GRAY UPDATE

Jon Gray's scheduled rehab start Saturday at Modesto was rained out. So the Rockies bumped him a day. He'll start

Sunday for the Single-A Nuts against the Stockton Ports.

In working back from an abdominal strain suffered during spring training, Gray has a 65-pitch limit. He'll probably need at least one more rehab start after that. Long reliever Christian Bergman will pitch in his spot in the rotation this week.

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How sustainable is Trevor Story’s home run barrage? So far it’s coming from all angles

By Nick Groke / The Denver Post | @nickgroke | April 9th 2016

Trevor Story on Friday became just the fifth player in baseball history with home runs in the first four games of a season, which ties a major-league record. That record was first set by Willie Mays in 1971. But Story stands alone in the history of the game with his total of six homers in the four games.

So how sustainable is his run? He’s on pace to hit 243 homers this season, so forget about him keeping up that kind of pace. He is a rookie, after all, so he will almost surely slump at some point this season.

But his early-season barrage shows some solid, sustainable promise. He’s doing it from all angles. He homered off Zack

Greinke, twice, for starters. But he has homered off lefties and righties; to left, center and right field; off , curveballs, sliders and changeups; in different counts; and on the road and at home:

Monday vs. the D-backs in Arizona

Pitcher Inning Count Pitch Distance

RH 3rd 0-1 fastball 364 feet to right field

RH Zack Greinke 4th 2-0 slider 439 to left-center

Tuesday vs. the D-backs in Arizona

RH Shelby Miller 4th 1-0 changeup 433 to left-center

Wednesday vs. the D-backs in Arizona

LH Patrick Corbin 1st 1-0 fastball 433 to left-center

Friday vs. the Padres at Coors Field

RH Colin Rea 4th 0-0 curveball 411 to left field

LH Ryan Buchter 9th 3-2 fastball 397 to left field “That’s something that legends do,” Carlos Gonzalez said.

Story’s second home run Friday, in the Rockies’ home opener at Coors Field, came off a very good pitch from Ryan

Buchter. I asked Story about that pitch. He said he really liked his swing on that homer. 14

“He crossfired me inside,” Story said. “I just pulled my hands in on it.”

As for his geometry, Story, who has only been on base once (he singled for the first time Friday), is hitting at an optimal launch angle. Mike Petriello covered that with some Statcast data earlier this week:

Look at the exit velocities and launch angles of four shots: 1. Greinke — 102.5 mph, 28 degrees 2. Greinke — 106 mph, 29 degrees 3. Miller — 107 mph, 30 degrees 4. Corbin — 108.8 mph, 24 degrees

For context, the Major League average exit velocity in 2015 was 88.7 mph.

That angle comes from a strong swing from the back-forward.

“He uses his lower half well. That’s usually where it comes from,” Colorado manager Walt Weiss said. “Guys who hit from the ground up tend to have more power. That’s what he does very well. He really uses his backside.”

And just in case, Story was throwing a 96-mph fastball in high school as a pitcher.

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Kemp hits 2 HRs and drives in 6, Padres stop Story, Rockies

By Associated Press / ESPN.com | April 9th 2016

DENVER -- The San Diego Padres didn't panic after becoming the first team in major league history to get shut out in its first three games -- they were coming to hitter-friendly Coors Field, after all.

"I think a lot of guys like hitting here," Matt Kemp said after homering twice and tying a career-high with six RBI in the

Padres' 16-3 rout of the Colorado Rockies on Saturday night.

The Padres also ended Trevor Story's home run streak at four games to start his big league career.

After beginning the season with a major league record 30-inning scoreless skid, the Padres have scored 29 runs in their last 15 innings. That's the most they've ever scored over a two-game span, besting the 28 runs they piled up against

Pittsburgh from Aug. 5-6, 2011.

"I guess it's kind of feast or famine right now," manager Andy Green said. "But we'll get to normal baseball here at some point."

"He clearly likes hitting here at Coors Field," Green said.

Drew Pomeranz (1-0) gave up two runs and four hits in five innings. He struck out seven, including Story twice in picking up the win against his former team.

Story, who has gone deep six times since making his debut on , was the first major leaguer to homer in each of his first four games. That run ended with a 1-for-5, three-strikeout performance -- the shortstop also made his first .

"I enjoyed it. I think mostly the games we won," Story said. "I didn't really enjoy them that much when we lost. Yeah, it was cool."

Story said having the homer streak behind him was actually a good thing.

"Yeah, I guess so. I wouldn't say I was putting pressure on myself to do that but yeah it's kind of a relief," he said.

Kemp admired Story's power at the plate Friday when the newcomer homered twice. On Saturday, it was Kemp's turn to put on a show.

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Kemp's solo shot to left in the third inning traveled 448 feet and his three-run shot in the fourth over the newly raised fences in the right field alley went 428 feet. Both came off lefty Jorge De La Rosa (0-1), who was tagged for seven earned runs in four innings in a rare Coors Field fiasco and left the clubhouse without speaking to reporters.

Kemp has homered seven times off De La Rosa and 39 times in his career against Colorado. It was Kemp's eighth career multihomer game and his fourth against the Rockies but first for San Diego.

A day after going 4 for 6 with a homer and four RBI, Kemp went 3 for 5 and scored twice.

"I've played here a lot, so I'm very familiar with it," Kemp said. "Playing with the Dodgers, a lot of games have been played here. I see the ball well. I like it and hopefully I can continue hit well here. It's a good backdrop."

Cory Spangenberg also hit a three-run homer off De La Rosa in the six-run fourth. Kemp added a two-run single off Jason

Gurka in the sixth, and Wil Myers hit the longest homer of the night, a 453-footer off Chad Qualls in a six-run ninth.

TRAINER'S ROOM

Padres: 3B Yangervis Solarte strained his right hamstring running down the line after hitting a single into the left-center gap leading off the fourth. He was replaced by Adam Rosales and helped to the dugout. Green said a decision on whether to put Solart on the DL will be made Sunday "but obviously when you've got to help a guy off the field, it wasn't a good situation for him."

Rockies: RHP Jon Gray (abdominal strain) will make his rehab start for Class A Modesto on Sunday. He was supposed to pitch Saturday but rain forced the Rockies to reschedule. It's likely he'll need two rehab starts before returning from the

DL.

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Padres: With Ross going on the DL, the Padres will start RHP James Shields (0-1, 4.50) in the series finale.

Rockies: RHP Chad Bettis (0-0. 8.44 ERA) takes the mound at Coors Field.

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Better, Faster, Younger: Why baseball's young stars are its best in 20 years

By Peter Keating / ESPN.com | April 8th 2016

WISE MEN SAY the first time you feel old is when you look around and realize that most stars are younger than you. If that's true, a lot of folks are aging very suddenly. Young studs are everywhere around MLB these days.

Consider the best players in each league and the careers they could have in store. In the NL, that would be 23-year- old Bryce Harper, about whom my colleague Jayson Stark has written: "He's a blend of Pete Rose and , as if that were even possible." Actually, it was possible; his name was Frank Robinson. As in the Triple Crown -- winning

Frank Robinson who hit 586 career home runs and won the MVP in both leagues. He happens to be the best statistical comparison to Harper in baseball history, according to Baseball-Reference.com. In the AL, it's , 24, and his best comp is Mickey Mantle. As in Mickey Freaking Mantle.

Beyond them, the parade of high-grade youngsters just keeps marching. Jose Altuve, Nolan Arenado, Kris

Bryant, Madison Bumgarner and were All-Stars last year. Mookie Betts and will be for years to come. And that only takes us through the first three letters of the alphabet.

To measure just how drastically youth has taken over MLB, The Mag, with the help of Ben Alamar, ESPN's director of sports analytics, studied the past three decades of elite seasons by players -- which we defined as 1 standard deviation or more above average in wins above replacement. Alamar found that, beginning in the early 1990s, the proportion of elite seasons by position players ages 25 and under declined sharply, bottoming out at 5.9 percent in 2002. Then it started to rise, and it has jumped sharply in the past two years, hitting a whopping 34.4 percent in 2015. (The data is similar, though not as dramatic, for pitchers.) In short, young players are producing more great seasons than they have in a generation.

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Like hitting and pitching, youth and age tend to move in cycles as sources for MLB star power. Youngsters with Hall of

Fame talent don't come around too often, so think about what happens when a few do arrive at about the same time, as

Mike Schmidt and George Brett did in the early '70s, or , Cal Ripken Jr. and Tony Gwynn did in the early '80s (or Harper and Trout did in the early 2010s). Teams begin to focus on developing their own prospects. If we are lucky, an entire cohort emerges. And as veterans, they dominate the game -- until another crop of rookies is strong enough to replace them, and the seasons change again.

Over time, however, those cycles are trending younger. MLB's relentlessly increasing media revenue keeps driving up the value of wins, spurring organizations to keep improving and innovating the search for young talent. On one front, teams have stepped up their recruiting efforts in Latin America, where spiraling competition has them investing ever more in hotshot teenagers (though signing internationals still costs a fraction of what it would take to sign North Americans with labor rights). In 2012-13, the first summer and winter of baseball's current CBA, the Rays spent $4 million, the most of any club, on international free agents. That leader-of-the-pack figure has since exploded, to $8.4 million by the Rangers in

2013-14, $15.6 million by the Yankees in 2014-15 and more than $44 million by the Dodgers this past year. As analyst Ari

Berkowitz noted three years ago: "We've gotten to the point where signing 16-year-old IFAs [international free agents] is no longer a market inefficiency but a competitive requirement."

Domestic scouting, bolstered by sabermetrics, keeps getting better too. A 2009 study by Sky Andrecheck, an analyst who now works for the Indians, found that the expected career WAR of players taken No. 1 in the MLB draft increased by 35 percent from 1970 to 2000, from 19.4 to 26.1, and recent drafts have bolstered the conclusion that early picks are worth more than they used to be. The development and evaluation of young players are also improving. As just one example, more than 70 percent of the prospects who recently ranked in Baseball America's top 100 lists eventually made it into

MLB's top 100 players (as ranked by WAR), up from about 60 percent 20 years ago.

As clubs grow more confident that their picks and prospects will actually turn into valuable players, they hesitate less about calling them up at a young age from the minor leagues, as the 2015 season surely demonstrated. And if something goes awry along the way, well, young players also make good reclamation projects. Jose Fernandez was NL rookie of the year in 2013, blew out his elbow, had Tommy John surgery, came back to strike out 79 batters in 64⁄ innings last year and is now among the Cy Young Award favorites -- and he's only 23 years old.

Meanwhile, the game's showcase talents have shifted. Across MLB, scoring has dipped, keyed by a decline in power, and teams -- again, boosted by analytics -- are quantifying and appreciating defense more. All of which puts a premium on

19 speed, the quintessential skill of youth. If you compare the list of MLB players who generated 5 or more wins above replacement last year to the group of 5-plus WAR players from 2000, three things stand out about the contemporary athletes: As a group, they hit far fewer home runs (24.3 per 600 PA vs. 32.9). They are much better fielders (defense:

19.7 percent of total value, compared with just 4.7 percent). And on average, they're more than a full year younger (ages:

27.7 and 28.8).

Occasionally, external forces have reshaped baseball's balance between youth and veterans. For instance, the average age of players jumped during World War II as athletes were called into military service and teams often replaced them with oldsters who otherwise would have been retired. Pretty clearly, steroids also delivered an exogenous shock to MLB's system. We don't know which players used what chemicals -- or, unfortunately, how much various PEDs actually enhance performance. But average age, power and the percentage of elite seasons by older players started rising in the mid-

1990s, when it became common for anabolically supported weight training to extend MLB careers. And they all started declining in the mid-2000s, after the advent of drug testing. We don't need to know precisely what a man drank last night to recognize that he's hungover this morning.

With that era gone, not much is left to hold back the forces pushing baseball to keep getting younger. Smart franchises, like the two that met in last year's , are showing how to stay ahead of the curve: by developing, hoarding and riding young talent.

It's all enough to light up the game for years to come. Even if it makes you feel as old as .

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