First-year manager Walt Weiss announced that Jhoulys Chacin will start on Opening Day for the Rockies.
Around this time last year Rockies general manager Dan O’Dowd was publicly questioning Chacin’s offseason conditioning in Venezuela and then in May the right-hander was demoted to Triple-A only to be placed on the disabled list with a chest injury.
Chacin returned to the Rockies’ rotation four months later and finished strong, throwing 44 innings with a 2.84 ERA in nine August and September starts, although his 23/17 K/BB ratio during that time was hardly impressive.
With a 3.62 ERA in 67 career starts Chacin has been one of the most successful Rockies pitchers in recent memory, but his getting the Opening Day assignment after an up-and-down 2012 also speaks to the overall weakness of the current rotation.
