Colorado Rockies

Carlos Gonzalez was reportedly offered "a lucrative four-year deal from the Colorado Rockies this spring," according to Bob Nightengale of USA Today.

Gonzalez, 31, didn't sign that extension, however, and is set to hit free agency this winter. He's struggled in 2017, hitting just .228 with seven home runs and 32 RBI, potentially limiting his value on the market.

Gonzalez is in the final season of a seven-year, $80 million contract and likely decided against signing an extension with the Rockies in the hope of earning another long-term and lucrative contract to close out his career.

Coming off another strong campaign that saw him hit .298 with 25 homers and 100 RBI, Gonzalez bet on himself to post big numbers again. And seeing as Gonzalez hit at least 25 homers and 85 RBI in five of the last seven seasons coming into 2017, it was a justifiable gamble.

It seems to have backfired, though Gonzalez's body of work should count for something.

"...One season shouldn't diminish what the whole package is and what a guy can do," Chicago Cubs pitcher Jake Arrieta told Nightengale while talking about free agency. "You can struggle for a little while. It's going to happen. If a guy hits .200 for a while, it doesn't mean he's a .200 hitter."

"Anomalies happen, whether it's a great year or a bad year," Washington Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo added. "Oftentimes, there's reasons and rationales that may not be clear. A player may be nicked up and grinding through a little discomfort or an injury because he was good enough to play but not hurt enough to be on the DL. So many things go into it."

Gonzalez will likely receive some benefit of the doubt. But given that he'll be 32 next season, his disappointing 2017 campaign might force him to accept a contract less lucrative than the extension the Rockies reportedly put on the table.

Colorado Rockies outfielder and infielder Ian Desmond was placed on the 10-day disabled list Friday with a strained calf, according to the Denver Post's Nick Groke. 

Reliever Pat Neshek, who was acquired from the Philadelphia Phillies on Wednesday, was activated to take Desmond's spot on the roster. 

This is another setback for Desmond, who dealt with a calf injury earlier in the year and underwent surgery for a broken bone in his hand before the season. He didn't make his season debut until April 30 because of the hand issue.

The two-time All-Star and three-time Silver Slugger winner has batted .285 with a .328 on-base percentage, five home runs and 32 RBI in 2017 after slashing .285/.335/.446 with 22 home runs and 86 RBI last year as a member of the Texas Rangers.

When healthy, Desmond adds an additional source of power to the Rockies lineup, but they have enough pieces to survive his setback in the short term. The combination of Carlos Gonzalez, Gerardo Parra, Alexi Amarista and Pat Valaika can cover the corner outfield spots, while Mark Reynolds can play first base.

Still, Colorado could use a healthy Desmond in its lineup as it pursues a postseason spot for the first time since 2009.

Carlos Gonzalez and the Colorado Rockies have traded places.

It used to be that Gonzalez was excellent and the Rockies were not. He fought through frequent injuries to make three All-Star teams and win three Gold Gloves and two Silver Sluggers between 2010 and 2016. The Rockies, meanwhile, averaged 72 wins per season.

Now in 2017, the Rockies are excellent, and Gonzalez is not.

Despite occasional stumbles, the 2017 Rockies have been about as impervious to death as your standard-issue horror-movie villain. Their 58-45 record gives them a firm hold on the National League's second wild card. So if all goes well, they'll soon be playing in their first postseason since 2009.

But of the parameters covered by that "if," none looms as large as the CarGo conundrum.

Over the previous seven years, a normal season for Gonzalez featured an .888 OPS and 26 home runs. He has just a .642 OPS and six home runs through 84 games this year. Adjust his offense for Coors Field, and he's one of the three worst hitters in Major League Baseball.

Simply noting that much is doing the 31-year-old a kindness. In wins above replacement at Baseball Reference (minus-1.3) and FanGraphs (minus-1.7), Gonzalez rates as the worst player in MLB.

Or, you could just hear it from him.

"I know what it feels like to be the best player in the game and the worst player in the game. Right now, I feel like I'm the worst player in the game," Gonzalez said in early July, per Thomas Harding of MLB.com.

Through it all, the Rockies have stood by Gonzalez anyway.

That's because he's remained a healthy part of an outfield that's been beaten up a lot. It's also because he's earning $20 million in the final year of his seven-year, $80 million contract, making him the most expensive player on a team that only has a $128 million payroll.

But above all, it's because the Rockies believe in him.

Here's what manager Bud Black told Tony DeMarco of FanRag in mid-July:

"He’s frustrated, but he’s a good Rockie. He’s working hard, and it’s going to turn at some point. I wish I could tell you when. It hasn’t been difficult at all to handle him. He’s been a pro. He’s a team guy. He’s a very unselfish player. He’s doing everything he can. The preparation is outstanding. Nothing he’s tried has panned out, but believe me, it’s coming."

Black's prophecy, if you will, is starting to come true.

The entire Rockies offense has turned on the jets, going from a .758 OPS before the All-Star break to a .930 OPS after it. Gonzalez has recently joined the fun by hitting .357 over his last seven games.

There is precedent for him to turn a mini streak into a mega streak. Take 2015, for example. He had a .657 OPS and four homers through May. He had a .961 OPS and 36 homers afterward.

However, the streak Gonzalez is on now doesn't look like a launching pad for something like that.

Seven games isn't a telling sample size, and he has just a .464 slugging percentage to go with his .357 batting average. He's been hitting, but not raking.

So it goes. While many of Gonzalez's beneath-the-surface stats—strikeout rate, walk rate and plate discipline—suggest he's fine, the quality of his contact tells a different story.

Baseball Savant has his average exit velocity at just 86.4 miles per hour, his lowest on record. But that's just since 2015. FanGraphs has hard-hit rates for his entire career and shows his 28.1 percent figure to be his worst since his rookie season in 2008.

Worse, his hard contact was front-loaded:

This raises suspicion of whether he's playing through an injury.

He went on the disabled list in June with a strained right shoulder. Perhaps he'd already been dealing with that for a while and is still feeling the effects.

Or, Gonzalez's attention might not be 100 percent on baseball.

He's from Venezuela, where all is not well. Though he told ESPN's Jerry Crasnick that his goal is to "stay locked in" despite the crisis back home, it would be understandable if that's been easier said than done. He isn't an automaton. He's a human being.

Or, maybe this is just him aging out of his stardom at the wrong time.

It's hard to know—objectively, and without doubt—when a player is past his prime. But the game offers clues. And there are some whoppers in Gonzalez's case file.

Per Baseball Savant, he's seeing more fastballs while the rest of the league sees fewer, with the increase happening both at Coors Field and elsewhere. He's been powerless against it, slugging a career-worst .328 against fastballs.

Gonzalez can still mash fastballs in spots where he can get his arms extended, such as down the middle (.650 SLUG%) or on the outside corner (.600 SLUG%). But as this Baseball Savant heatmap reveals, that's not where pitchers are aiming:

Between its fluidity and sheer power, Gonzalez's swing has always been a thing of beauty. But due to its length and loopiness, it needs top-of-the-charts bat speed to work.

The high fastball percentage that pitchers are feeding Gonzalez indicates they don't think he has the bat speed anymore. Same goes for the steady diet of high-and-tight hard stuff, as it's no secret that he's struggling to get around on it.

In any other season, the thought of seeing CarGo in the playoffs again would be a happy one.

He owned his first and only taste of October when the Rockies played the Philadelphia Phillies in the 2009 National League Division Series, albeit in a losing cause. He had 10 hits in 17 at-bats, including two doubles and a homer.

This season is different. Before the Rockies can even begin to hope Gonzalez still has some of that magic left, they first need him to snap out of it and help a postseason push that could use his help.

It's hurt them enough that he's already made them wait this long. Based on what's in the tea leaves, though, they should be bracing for even more pain.

Data courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs and Baseball Savant. Contract and payroll information courtesy of Cot's Baseball Contracts.

The Colorado Rockies have reportedly started to pursue Texas Rangers catcher Jonathan Lucroy ahead of Monday's MLB non-waiver trade deadline.

On Thursday, Bob Nightengale of USA Today reported the Rockies shifted their focus to Lucroy after acquiring relief pitcher Pat Neshek from the Philadelphia Phillies.

The 31-year-old backstop has endured the worst season of his professional career with a .245/.300/.342 triple-slash line to go along with just four home runs in 76 games for Texas. He smashed 24 homers while putting up a rock-solid .855 OPS between the Rangers and Milwaukee Brewers last year.

Trade speculation started to swirl earlier in July, and the Florida native said he tried to block out the noise so he could focus on his on-field performance, per Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News:

"This is the third time dealing with it. One time I wasn't traded and one time I was. And I knew it could be a possibility again if we didn't play well. Robinson [Chirinos] is playing really well. You realize you can become expendable. I'm not bothered by it. Actually, I don't think about it. I've been pretty bad all season, and I know I'm a lot better than this. That's what I'm thinking about."

Those efforts have been unsuccessful so far. He's posted a .175 batting average with no home runs in 57 at-bats in July.

Meanwhile, Chirinos, 33, has made a bid for more consistent playing time down the stretch with an .849 OPS and 12 homers in 44 appearances this season.

The Rockies are one of the few teams that make sense for Lucroy. They have received just three home runs from the position all year—two from Ryan Hanigan and one from Dustin Garneau, according to ESPN.com. Tony Wolters has none in 65 games.

Getting more consistent production from their catchers could help the team earn a wild-card berth in the National League. The 58-45 Rockies currently lead the Brewers by four games for the second spot.

The Colorado Rockies announced Wednesday that they have acquired reliever Pat Neshek in a trade from the Philadelphia Phillies.

As the Phillies noted, they will receive three minor leaguers in the deal in shortstop Jose Gomez as well as pitchers Alejandro Requena and J.D. Hammer.

Neshek is in the midst of the best year of his career, currently posting a 1.12 ERA with 45 strikeouts in 40.1 innings. It was enough for the journeyman to earn his second All-Star appearance.

He also went to the Mid-Summer Classic in 2014 when he finished with a 1.87 ERA for the St. Louis Cardinals, one of six teams he has played for in his career before his move to Colorado.

The right-hander's consistent play was enough to earn a lot of interest on the trade market, with Jerry Crasnick of ESPN noting at least five other teams were scouting Neshek in the past week, including the Los Angeles Dodgers and Washington Nationals.

However, the Rockies were the one to pull off the trade, a key move as Bob Nightengale of USA Today noted:

The #Rockies get their man in Pat Neshek to bolster bullpen and keep them in postseason race

— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) July 27, 2017

Colorado entered Wednesday ranked 25th in the majors with a 4.53 bullpen ERA, per ESPN.

On the other hand, the Phillies land three promising players in return for a middle reliever. Gomez is the biggest name of the group, currently ranked No. 21 in the Rockies organization by MLB.com.

The 20-year-old is currently hitting .324 in the South Atlantic League and could be a key player before too long for Philadelphia.

Tupac said so. pic.twitter.com/d1QgMS1sYZ

— Ian Desmond (@IDesmond20) July 24, 2017

Ian Desmond is taking style cues from a hip-hop icon.

The Colorado Rockies infielder tweeted a photo of his newest Rockies gear, and it's inspired by a vintage photo of Tupac Shakur. 

Before flaunting his "Catch the Fever" tee with the caption "Tupac said so," Desmond showed his fans a photo from the 90s of Tupac wearing the same shirt.

Tupac knew what was up. pic.twitter.com/vIxdqg41tZ

— Ian Desmond (@IDesmond20) July 17, 2017

Fact: Nolan Arenado set a career high with three home runs in the Colorado Rockies' 18-4 win over the San Diego Padres on Wednesday afternoon. 

Bleacher Report will be bringing sports fans the most interesting and engaging Cold Hard Facts of the day, presented by Coors Light.

Source: B/R Insights 

That’s THREE homers for Nolan Arenado! He is now 5-for-5 with 7 RBIs … in the 7th inning. 🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/vJDsZUBipB

— MLB (@MLB) July 19, 2017

Back in mid-June, Colorado Rockies third baseman Nolan Arenado completed his first career cycle with a walk-off home run versus the San Francisco Giants. 

On Wednesday afternoon, Arenado made the San Diego Padres pay for pitching to him several times at Coors Field. 

The 26-year-old already had a pair of RBI hits when he blasted a leadoff solo home run in the bottom of the fourth off San Diego starter Clayton Richard:

Nolan can’t be stopped! pic.twitter.com/abzGZXYdA6

— MLB (@MLB) July 19, 2017

Arenado was far from finished, though, something Padres reliever Kevin Quackenbush discovered the hard way the following inning: 

Nolan goes yard AGAIN.

Not a bad day so far: 4-for-4, 2 HR, 4 RBIs. https://t.co/F2sUGjgiU5

— MLB (@MLB) July 19, 2017

It appears Quackenbush learned little from that battle, as he elected to again challenge Arenado in the bottom of the sixth: 

That’s THREE homers for Nolan Arenado! He is now 5-for-5 with 7 RBIs … in the 7th inning. 🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/vJDsZUBipB

— MLB (@MLB) July 19, 2017

Arenado began the bottom of the seventh inning with five hits in five plate appearances, three home runs and seven RBI.

He made franchise history and also added his name to the MLB record books:

Nolan going once!
Nolan going twice!
Nolan going three times! pic.twitter.com/ipXh6MApks

— Cut4 (@Cut4) July 19, 2017

Nolan Arenado:
First player in @Rockies history with 5 hits, 3 homers, and 7 RBI in a single game.
6th in MLB in last decade.

— Jeremy Frank (@MLBRandomStats) July 19, 2017

[Twitter]

What is Charlie Blackmon looking at?

He is stepping out of the batter's box and staring straight up into the night sky. It is 2010, and Blackmon is with the Double-A Tulsa Drillers. What is it? Is there a UFO swooping in? A Baseball God to beseech for more hits? What in the world is up there in the Oklahoma heavens?

"I was having trouble adjusting my eyes at night in the lights," says the Colorado All-Star, who sees and hits the ball as well as anybody in today's game.

He felt like they were exceptionally bright, producing more glare than light. The result, in his mind, produced a "sun-glare-like" effect that would cause his vision to blur.

"So I was, like, OK, that means there's too much light getting into my eyes and so, in my thinking, my pupils were too big, so what I'm going to do is step out of the box and direct my face at a light," he explains. "Don't look at the light, right? That will hurt your eyeballs. But if I point my face at the light, there will be a lot of light coming into my face and what that will do is constrict my pupils, make them smaller, so it will let less light in."

Then, he figured, when he stepped back into the box and looked out at the pitcher, his blurred vision would be gone and he wouldn't feel like the lights were too bright.

"Whether or not that made sense, it helped me at the time," Blackmon says. "But people would ask me, 'what are you looking at?'"

Charles Cobb Blackmon, 31, Rockies leadoff man, hitting savant and all-around goofball, sees things that others do not. His mind works in ways that others do not. He knows this.

"Yeah, I do some weird stuff," he says.

This is not breaking news to any of his Colorado Rockies teammates.

"He's not being funny," outfielder Carlos Gonzalez says. "He's just being Charlie. That's just the way he is. He's a great player and a great teammate."

"Every day he comes up with something," shortstop Trevor Story chimes in. "He's the most quirky guy I've ever been around."

"He is a legend, that's for sure," says second baseman DJ LeMahieu, one of Blackmon's closest friends on the team. "Charlie's one of a kind."

Blackmon burst onto the Colorado scene for good in 2014 with a spring so sizzling that he forced his way into the club's plans. Then he went 6-for-6 in the home opener with three doubles, one homer, five RBI and four runs scored.

He is one of the hardest-working players on the team, starting his days with a no-nonsense pregame routine each afternoon and finishing with a strict 30-45-minute postgame routine built around an elaborate stretching regimen.

"Certain parts of my body, like my hips, are tight and I think postgame is the best time to improve your flexibility," he explains. "So there are certain parts of my body that I'll stretch out to make sure that, anatomically, I work right and efficiently.

"I probably spend too much energy getting ready to play the game if you ask other people. I do a lot of pregame stretching and warming up, and to me it's important mentally to know I'm ready to play the game, that I can tear out of the box for a triple maybe the first pitch of the game."

Given that he leads the majors with 11 triples, who's to argue?

Also inarguable is the fascination that surrounds his quirky adventures. He is the subject of so many stories that you wonder how much is fact and how much is pure, unadulterated legend.

"I'm embarrassed to admit," Blackmon says, "probably a lot of them are true."

It was LeMahieu who rescued him on the side of the freeway one morning in January, 2016, on their way to work out. Blackmon, who still drives the 2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo that served as his high school wheels, sometimes likes to challenge the fuel light by seeing how far he can push it before the tank runs empty. That day, he lost.

"I'm always late to workouts, and that morning, it was still early and I had just gotten out of bed when he called me and said, 'Hey, where you at?'" recalls LeMahieu. "'I'm on the side of the highway.'"

So LeMahieu rescued his buddy, picking him up, driving him to the gas station and bringing him back to the Jeep with a full gas can. Then, to the everlasting gratitude of the Rockies, he alertly snapped a photo for posterity.

https://twitter.com/DJLeMahieu/status/689540205666181120

"That was really nice of him to take that picture of me," Blackmon says, sarcasm dripping from every word.

"Everyone thought that was staged, but it was real life," LeMahieu says. "He was on the side of the road looking like a homeless man.

"When he was filling up, I said, 'I've gotta get a picture of this.'"

The Jeep has roughly 140,000 miles on it, and if vehicles could become cult heroes, this heap would qualify.

"I hate it," Gonzalez roars. "I told him I'm going to get some gasoline and burn it in the parking lot. I might get in trouble for it, but it will be worth it."

Initially, the Rockies cut Blackmon some slack for refusing to part with his rolling high school sweetheart.

"At the beginning, I get it," CarGo says. "He was a young guy. We all go through that process where we're not making much money, and then you make money but you've got to save it for your family."

"I've told him many times, 'It's about time you get a new car,'" Nolan Arenado, Colorado's All-Star third baseman, says. "'You're one of the best center fielders in the game. It's time.' But he's very laid back.

"He's not into material things. That's what I love about him."

Maybe the closest he's come to getting a new ride happened one time when the Rockies returned home from a road trip. The team bus made the 45-minute trek from the airport into Denver around midnight, and as the sleepy traveling party arrived at Coors Field, Blackmon became alarmed when he couldn't find his Jeep to drive the short distance to his downtown home. Hey, who stole…

Then it hit him: He met the team at the airport to start the trip, and his vehicle was parked there.

"Oh yeah, I did that," Blackmon shrugs. "So I've got to get in a cab and go get it at the airport. Drive 45 minutes back to the airport, get my car, drive 45 minutes back."

What, LeMahieu couldn't save him that time?

"I don't know," Blackmon says. "He let me down right there."

Adds LeMahieu: "I can only help him out so many times. He's gotta eventually figure things out on his own."

On the field, Blackmon has done that as well as anybody in the game. Aside from triples, he also leads the majors in total bases (226) and hits (122) through Sunday and is tied for third in runs scored (75). Brian Jones, the Rockies' longtime video director, says Blackmon has become so adept at studying hitting video that he probably could run the club's digitized system himself.

It's just that, well, when he crosses that stark threshold from baseball back into real life, let's just say some of his good friends in the clubhouse still view him as a ball of clay that could use some shaping.

"Everybody thinks my look is a joke, my hair and my face," Blackmon says. "And apparently, I'm not a very good dresser.

"I think I look amazing."

He favors jeans and a collection of shirts ranging from various things that catch his eye on the internet. Teammates have been known to hoot loudly when they see him pair a Tommy Bahama shirt with that scraggly (stylish?) beard that he's been growing since 2013.

"His clothes…" Arenado groans. "He's not wearing no Louis Vuitton or Gucci. He's wearing … I couldn't even tell you.

"He asked me once, 'Do you want some shirts? I'm going to go on Amazon and get 'em.' And I'm like, Amazon?!"

In the clubhouse when the televisions are tuned to other games before or after Colorado plays, Blackmon will see something that will cause him to go into a rant that Arenado describes as some of "the best rants ever." Which, of course, spurs the Rockies to fire him up even more.

"We'll tell him, 'Oh man, that guy is better than you,'" Arenado says. "And he'll go, 'What?! He doesn't do this as good as me, he doesn't do that as good as me!'

"Oh yeah, we'll tee him up."

That's easy, because while Blackmon may not take himself seriously, he takes his baseball dead seriously. Manager Bud Black throws batting practice to him several times a week, at his request, because Blackmon likes to get a look at the left-handed sliders Black feeds him because he knows that later that night, in a high-leverage situation, he likely will be facing the other team's lefty relief specialist.

Then there was the first time teammate Mark Reynolds met him in 2016. Reynolds came away amazed because as their group was hitting against a batting practice pitcher in the cage, Blackmon remarked that the protective L screen was a little too close. Blackmon stepped off the distance from home plate to the screen, and sure enough, it had been placed a step too close to the plate.

"He's very particular," Reynolds says.

He's also very talented.

Blackmon grew up in Suwanee, Georgia, transferred to Georgia Tech University as a pitcher from Young Harris College and even tossed a shutout inning for the Rambling Wreck in an exhibition game against the Atlanta Braves.

"He always was one of the freakiest athletes we had in college," says Nationals catcher Matt Wieters, whose last year at Georgia Tech was Blackmon's first. "There are some things God gave him that you can't teach.

"And the longer he's been in the game, the more his mind has developed. You can tell he's always thinking about things."

A classic case of great arm but no command, Blackmon was an outfielder by the time he left Georgia Tech, when Colorado picked him in the second round of the 2008 draft. Four years later he met LeMahieu at Triple-A Colorado Springs when the Rockies acquired him from the Cubs, and they bonded even more living near each other in Georgia at the time during the offseason.

"My house was close to the place we worked out," LeMahieu says. "He'd stay over, and slowly but surely, he kept leaving his clothes there. Pretty soon, the bathroom was filled up with his stuff. Before I knew it, he was, like, living with me.

"That's Charlie, man."

Interesting thing was, LeMahieu was married.

"He'd text, asking what my wife was making for dinner that night," LeMahieu says. "He was figuring out where he was going to eat."

It wasn't long before Jordan LeMahieu started asking her husband: "Can you find out if Charlie is coming over for dinner again tonight? I need to know how much to make."

Now the two pals are All-Stars living in Denver.

"And my wife goes furniture shopping for him," LeMahieu says, shaking his head. "Charlie will call every once in a while. Not as much now that he has a girlfriend, but I'm pretty sure [Jordan has] helped him buy a couch and a couple of chairs."

He's also bonded with Julian Valentin, Colorado's social media director, partly because they both attended Atlantic Coast Conference schools (Valentin played soccer at Wake Forest University) and partly because, well, Blackmon is a nice dude and his quirks are perfect for capturing on social media. In fact, it was during a Twitter Q&A with fans when Blackmon was in the minor leagues in 2011 that Valentin helped create the outfielder's social media alter ego, Chuck Nazty.

"He did this trip in Europe that I think personifies that personality," Valentin says. "It was a couple of offseasons ago, and instead of flying first class and staying in nice hotels, doing the typical pro athlete thing, he hoofed it. He carried a backpack and stayed in hostels. A friend canceled at the last minute, and he went by himself and enjoyed the experience."

Blackmon sees things. It's just that he doesn't always see the same things others see.

"I'm very analytical and concrete," says Blackmon, who earned his degree from Georgia Tech in business administration with a concentration in finance. "Things have to make sense to me. I always feel like I need to know why things work the way they work. I always ask a lot of questions."

Yes, Charlie Blackmon is an absolute classic, and he doesn't care who knows it. Take, for example, the fact that his walk-up music at Coors Field dates back to 1985, a song called, "It's Your Love" by The Outfield. It's the same tune he's been using since college, and way he figures it, by not choosing something in this century he doesn't have to keep up with "the new trends, or whatever."

Yes, he's quirky, but get close enough to him and the rewards are immense. Why, he's even let Story ride in his Jeep.

"It was a high honor," Story says. "I don't think he lets just anyone ride in the Blessed Chuck Jeep."

Inside of which is an eclectic assortment of items that includes a Wiffle ball bat (used as recently as this past spring training, Blackmon says), a fishing pole, ice chests….

"It's a mess," Story says.

Hey, one man's trash is another's treasure.

"I just feel like every man should have a certain amount of things in his car," Blackmon explains. "At any given time you'll find protein, a Wiffle ball bat, Wiffle ball, duct tape, a couple bottles of water. It's just kind of a rolling box of junk."

Across the clubhouse, CarGo rolls his eyes.

"He told me two years ago he was building a car. A classic car," Gonzalez says. "Two years later, I ask and he says he's still working on it: 'It's going to be a muscle car, but I don't want to give you any details yet.'

"I asked again recently, 'Charlie, what's happening with the car?' He said, 'Oh man, it's taking forever.'"

CarGo howls, laughing at the transparency of it all and how he knows and Charlie knows that this is a ruse to change the conversation.

"He's such a liar," Gonzalez says, smiling broadly. "But that's why we love him."

      

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report. Follow Scott on Twitter, @ScottMillerBbl and talk baseball.

Colorado Rockies starting pitcher Jon Gray set a new mark for hurlers in Wednesday's 5-3 win over the Cincinnati Reds by crushing a 467-foot home run.

Gray took Reds pitcher Scott Feldman deep to center field at Coors Field in Denver:

.@MrGrayWolf22 took #PitchersWhoRake to a new level. #Statcast pic.twitter.com/2nTL5y0WiW

— MLB (@MLB) July 6, 2017

Gray's homer was the longest by a pitcher since Statcast began tracking home run distances in 2015.

The home run was the first of Gray's MLB career, and it broke the record San Francisco Giants pitcher Jeff Samardzija previously held (446 feet in June).

Wednesday's game marked Gray's second start since missing more than two months due to injury.

On the mound, he pitched 5.2 innings, allowing eight hits, one walk and two earned runs while striking out five in a winning effort.

Per ESPN.com, Feldman wasn't pleased about the homer: "I feel like you should get the pitcher out every time. So, to pretty much lose the game on that, not a good feeling."

Gray (6'4", 245 lbs) is a career .118 hitter in 68 at-bats.

After enduring an eight-game losing streak, Gray's home run helped Colorado improve to 3-3 over its past six games. The Rockies hold the second wild-card spot in the National League.