DENVER -- Not even snow can slow Rockies third baseman
“We’re trying to score runs,” Arenado said. “Like I talked about earlier, we’ve got to get more shutdown innings and we’ll be all right. But early on in the year, everybody was wondering where our offense was, and we were pitching good.\n\n“Good teams are able to put it together, and we haven’t done that yet. But hopefully we’re starting.”\n\nIn the early part of the season, Arenado said he knew he “wasn’t doing enough, and that’s always disappointing.”\n\nArenado had an eventful year before the season’s first pitch. The swings of arbitration and contract negotiation finally led to an eight-year, $260 million contract that he signed during Spring Training. The team had an eight-game losing streak in early April, and the lack of offense from Arenado and most of the squad hung over the start of the season.
But Arenado became one of the game’s top stars by pouring all his effort into minute details. Defensively, many of the eye-popping plays he makes are ones he practices, whether it’s at the University of California at Irvine during the winter or on the half-field at Spring Training. Hitting is the same. Simple drills like soft-toss flips in the cage, and the thought process during batting practice are a little different from the routines of other players. Arenado simply carries all that into games.\n\n“I started focusing on the process more than the results, and good things started happening,” Arenado said. “Atlanta is where I started to feel better and that carried over to Milwaukee and now back home. Even when I went 0-for-5 and 0-for-4 back to back, the last game in Atlanta and the first game in Milwaukee and I still felt like I knew where I was at. That’s a good feeling. Sometimes you don’t feel like that after an 0-for-9.”\n\nA Lake Forest, Calif., native, Arenado has never been shy about his dislike for the cold. But on a day that started not only in flurries but in a temperature of 39 degrees and wind-chill factor of 32, Arenado socked a home run an estimated 402 feet off Derek Holland in the first, and Mark Reynolds followed with a homer to center for a quick 3-0 lead.\n\n“Some hits and we won, so you’re going to usually smile,” Arenado said. “It was a long game. We wish we didn’t have that long a game in that type of weather.”
In a four-run second, Arenado seemed to have another homer on a towering fly to left. Umpires ruled it foul on the field and the call was upheld after a crew chief’s replay review -- even though TV replays seemed to indicate otherwise.\n\n“Today was a great day, but you want as many homers as you can get,” Arenado said. “I just don’t think the ball lands where it landed if it went on the other side of the foul pole.”\n\n**Three takeaways that could lead to improved performance**\n\n• Freeland legitimately found positives, despite yielding five runs (three earned) on four hits and four walks in five innings.