Long Beach State University Athletics
Tulowitzki Doesn't Sound Like Rookie
10/6/2007 12:00:00 AM | General
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Tulowitzki Doesn't Sound Like a Rookie Clint Hurdle walked through the clubhouse on or about May 21, when his Colorado Rockies had fallen nine games under .500, when only three teams in baseball had worse records. He heard a voice, and as best as he can remember, it said, "Enough is enough. Let's play like a good team." It rose into something of a rant. The manager's instinct, of course, was to discover which 10-year veteran had finally, mercifully, spoken up. But when Hurdle turned, he saw the man with the mouth who had uttered those words, 22-year-old rookie shortstop Troy Tulowitzki. His r¿sum¿ at the time: 66 big league games. "Not surprising," said Mike Weathers, Tulowitzki's coach at Long Beach State. "It wasn't a matter of if, just when, he would do something like that. It was going to happen." Left fielder Matt Holliday is the Rockies' candidate for most valuable player and was the NL batting champ. Todd Helton is the franchise's face, the veteran who's making his first postseason appearance. Jeff Francis is the ace, Manny Corpas the closer. Tulowitzki, though, might be the attitude. "I think he was able to help a lot of guys that maybe didn't have an edge get an edge," Hurdle said, "and some guys that had an edge get a bigger edge." The wild-card Rockies have a significant edge over the Philadelphia Phillies in their National League Division Series. If Colorado -- which has never won a home playoff game -- beats the Phillies in Game 3 tonight in Denver, the Rockies will be in air so rare, it might take time to adjust. They hold a two-games-to-none lead, and one more win in the best-of-five series will put them in the National League Championship Series for the first time. If that happens, it figures Tulowitzki will be involved -- somehow. His edge didn't develop in the early part of this season. He came equipped with it, maybe his sixth tool, from the day he broke camp with the club. "I wanted to make the team," Tulowitzki said. "But as soon as I found out that I was on the team, I expected to win. . . . I didn't expect to lose at all. I'll be the first one to say that." That was the tenor of the words that spewed forth at the Rockies' low ebb back in May, and it happened at an interesting point for Tulowitzki. Through his first 19 games, he was hitting .188. He struck out 20 times in 69 at-bats. "He wasn't putting the ball in play," Weathers said. "That was killing him. But once he got out of it, they started seeing the kind of player he could be, and the confidence that he had. He got some support from the older guys, and they got to see what is in him -- and that's to be a pure leader." So after that early slump, Tulowitzki put together one of the best seasons by a rookie shortstop in recent memory. He hit .291 with 24 home runs and 99 RBI to became one of the favorites -- along with Milwaukee's power-hitting Ryan Braun -- for the NL Rookie of the Year award. He moved from eighth to seventh to second in the Rockies' productive lineup for most of the second half and would get in position for Holliday, Helton, Garrett Atkins and Brad Hawpe -- the Rockies' brutal right, left, right, left combination -- to drive him in. He scored 104 runs, most among rookies; he had two more RBI than Braun. "It's happened quick," Tulowitzki said. Not that he didn't expect to be in the majors at this moment. Tulowitzki was part of a stellar 2005 draft, in which he fell to seventh. The players taken before him include Arizona outfielder Justin Upton, who's still in these playoffs and was the top pick; Kansas City third baseman Alex Gordon; Washington third baseman Ryan Zimmerman; and Braun, selected fifth. When Toronto selected pitcher Ricky Romero sixth, Tulowitzki was sitting there, a present wrapped for the Rockies. "If he got there, we were going to take him," Rockies scouting director Bill Schmidt said. "He was a talented kid. Everything we dug up on him was [that he] was a high-character individual. To be honest, he's better than I even thought he was." If there's one area in which that's the case, it is on defense. The shortstop that preceded Tulowitzki at Long Beach State was Bobby Crosby, who ended up as the 2004 American League Rookie of the Year with Oakland. Both stand 6-feet-3. Weathers had to fend off scouts who immediately wanted to move his men to third. "Seeing him every day, the ball always went in the glove," Weathers said. "I just told people, 'Let these guys play their way out of playing shortstop.' " Tulowitzki, too, had no desire to move from shortstop. "As a kid, I was always on the field trying to do things that the other kids had never seen before," he said. Now, he's doing stuff other big leaguers aren't. He led the majors this year with 834 total chances -- 114 more than anyone else, an indication that he can, indeed, get to more balls than you might expect. No shortstop since 1980 has had more than the 561 assists Tulowitzki collected this year. "There are some balls I think are coming to me," Holliday said, "and they never get there." Tulowitzki has already made an impact on these playoffs, drawing a key bases-loaded walk in the Rockies' three-run second in Game 1, hitting a solo homer and a double in Game 2. And if the Rockies waver, even slightly, over the weekend at home, it wouldn't be surprising if they turned to their shortstop for a reminder about how to win. |
