Back when I lived in Milwaukee, the Triple-A team for the Brewers played in Denver. This is what I remember about that -- the big club never got either power numbers or pitching numbers out of their farm team that they really could trust. The altitude screwed everything up, and my undergraduate years were filled with watching robust first-basemen come up in September having hit 50 home runs in AAA ball, only to find they had warning-track power at sea -- or in this case, really big lake -- level.

Which is why I'm not panicking (yet) over the trouble Jonathan Papelbon has had the last couple of nights against the Rockies -- and that is the case even though my fan-crush on the way Daniel Bard throws the ball has begun to annoy my friends and loved ones. I will grant you that blowing two saves in as many nights -- even though only one of them cost the team a ballgame -- is not something you see every day, unless, of course, you have the Eric Gagne channel on your basic cable package. But the Denver is simply an geographical fluke in the major leagues, and very few numbers out of there can be trusted. So we should probably see how Papelbon fares in the teeth of the Pacific gales this weekend before jumping to any real conclusions. Of course, it is nice to have an heir apparent...

Problems in the heavy air...