Ian Desmond has a simple strategy for Coors Field

DENVER – It took a little longer than anyone involved had hoped but Friday night in LoDo, Ian Desmond made his first home start at Coors Field.

Desmond has typically been a 20 home run, 20 stolen base guy in his career and he was asked how he thought his offensive profile might play in this offensively charged environment.

“If I hit the ball on the barrel, any park is a hitter’s park,” he quipped. “I don’t really care where I play, I’m just trying to get pitches to hit and give competitive at-bats. I’m excited to get back here and play against the Diamondbacks and try to win the series.”

Desmond has played 23 games as a visitor at Coors in his career, posting a very good slash line of .379/.406/.611 with three home runs, 11 doubles, and 18 RBI. He went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts in his debut in his new home. An inauspicious start to be sure, but an ultimately meaningless one.

“It’s good to be back out there playing,” he says. “Hopefully, the fans come out. Beautiful weather. Good weekend good matchup. We’re going to need the support.”

Colorado is in the midst of a series against the Arizona Diamondbacks, a rematch of a series that took place in Phoenix less than a week ago. After that, the Rockies welcome in the defending World Series Champion Chicago Cubs and then the Los Angeles Dodgers for a four-game set. This ten-game homestand could tell us a lot about the team and about how their new super utility man feels about his new home ballpark.

Bud Black recently described a sort of non-plan plan for dealing with getting both Desmond and Mark Reynolds enough at-bats throughout the course of the season. Of course, the longer Colorado has the “problem” of needing to figure out how to play all their good players, things should be going well for them.