’Topes welcome a break
Plane flights, time with family on the agenda starting today
It’s been a month since Albuquerque Isotopes pitcher Thad Weber has seen his family, so the All-Star break could not have come at a better time.
“I have a wife and three kids back at home,” the Lincoln, Neb., native said before Sunday’s game against visiting Las Vegas. “Obviously this is much-needed (family time).”
Like many of his teammates, Weber has a flight booked out of Albuquerque today.
Weber said he probably won’t think too much about baseball until his return flight to Las Vegas this Thursday when the Isotopes visit the 51s for the first game of a fourgame series.
“To step away from the game for a few days, even if it’s only three days, it’s huge for a lot of guys,” Weber said. “When you get that time away to really shut it down and not think about it, I try to take advantage of that stuff. I don’t really tune into the home run derby and the all-star game. I just try to focus on family and everything that’s going on at home.”
A 13-year major league veteran, Isotopes manager Glenallen Hill is well acquainted with the all-star break. Hill said he would spend time with family, but within a couple days, was ready to get back to
work.
“You want to maintain that feel (of playing every day),” Hill said. “It’s hard to stop doing it right in the middle of the season.”
And Hill’s message to his team is that the expectations coming off a layoff will remain the same.
“They have to remember they’re in midseason form,” he said. “The first day that they get back we expect them to hit the ground sprinting.”
Mark Brewer is in his fourth year in the Rockies’ organization, and his first as the Isotopes’ pitching coach. Just like the players, the coaches welcome the short respite.
“We’re really fortunate that the organization allows us five days off a year,” Brewer said. “I took mine earlier this year; we really need it.”
For the ’Topes’ front office, Monday is the start of another work week, said vice-president and general manager, John Traub.
“There is a lot of baseball left on our schedule,” he said. “We have some great promotions coming up, and there is a lot of work that goes into it.”
That said, Traub and his staff will look forward to taking a breath in early fall.
“The baseball life is a grind,” Traub said. “It is for the players, the players’ families, and it is for the front office . ... The schedule is unforgiving, it really is. We’ll rest when the season is over.”
Former Isotopes pitcher Kyle Freeland flirted with a no-hitter Sunday. The Colorado Rockies rookie tossed 8⅓ innings of no-hit ball against the Chicago White Sox before giving up Melky Cabrera’s line-drive single to left field.
Freeland was 6-3 with the Isotopes last year, his only season in Triple-A baseball. Hill, who watched the game along with many of the Isotopes players, was not surprised by the performance.
“If you look back on this game, you see how effectively wild he was,” Hill said of Freeland. “Especially with the right-handed hitters. They were very uncomfortable (at the plate).”