Offense Is Drying Up

Through 29 games at Coors Field last season, teams combined to average 14.79 runs and 3.21 home runs a game. Through 29 games this season, entering Monday night, teams had averaged 9.97 runs and 2.07 home runs a game.

No, pitching hasn’t improved that much. Most attribute the lower production in baseball’s most hitter-friendly park to the fact the Rockies have been storing game balls in a climate-controlled storage facility in an effort to offset Denver’s relatively low humidity.

A Major League Baseball official inspected the humidor-like structure and said it was in line with what Rawlings, the manufacturer of the balls, would recommend, and ongoing analysis of the balls has already shown a major difference.

The team left a dozen baseballs out of the humidor on March 24 and inspected them regularly to see if they continued to meet specifications of a weight between 5 and 5.25 ounces.

In mid-May, six of the 12 balls weighed less than the 5-ounce minimum, and three others weighed exactly 5 ounces. The balls kept in the humidor were within .01 ounce of their original weight.

Simple physics dictates that a heavier baseball won’t travel as far as a lighter one.

Pitchers love the humidor, and hitters grumble about it, but to Dodger first baseman Eric Karros, the humidor isn’t so much an issue as it is a symptom of the game’s ongoing problems.

“The problem is Major League Baseball is trying to change the integrity of the game without talking [to the players],” Karros said. “It’s like they’re trying to pull something behind your back. Nobody even told us [about the humidor]. That, to me, is the issue. We’re trying to work out [a collective bargaining agreement], and this is

TONIGHT

DODGERS’

HIDEO NOMO

(5-5, 3.49 ERA)

vs.

ROCKIES’

DENNY NEAGLE

(4-2, 3.96 ERA)

Coors Field, Denver, 6 p.m.

TV--Fox Sports Net 2.

Radio--KXTA (1150), KWKW (1330).

Update--Dodger batting instructor Jack Clark is scheduled to rejoin the team tonight after missing Monday night’s game to be with his girlfriend, who was hospitalized because of injuries received in a bicycling accident Sunday in Los Angeles. Nomo walked seven in his last start but gave up only two runs in a 5-3 win over the Brewers on May 27.