'Tis the season for griping in the forgotten time zone. Not that there's anything wrong with that. We do it every year about this time, and it's sort of fun. It's our time zone and we'll gripe if we want to.

But just in case you're interested in objectively evaluating the merits of our gripes, I'm sorry to report we seem to have the same old blind spot we've always had.

Let's start with this year's fully updated gripes, as I understand them:

• Why isn't anybody outside the Mountain West talking up menacing Matt Holliday for National League MVP?

• While we're feeling left out, why isn't the country getting behind tenacious Troy Tulowitzki for NL Rookie of the Year?

After all, Holliday is in both the batting race and the RBI race, and if you're looking to define a Most Valuable Player, you start with reliability and production.

There are others with good numbers in both categories - Albert Pujols, Miguel Cabrera, Chase Utley and Carlos Lee, just to name four - but none with as good a chance as Holliday to actually win both.

From here, Tulowitzki's competition looks even weaker. Milwaukee's Ryan Braun and Houston's Hunter Pence have played about 40 fewer games apiece than Tulo - a pretty hefty slice of a rookie season - having spent that time in the minors (Braun) or injured (Pence).

And while Braun's offensive numbers are better than Tulo's, his defensive numbers aren't close. Tulowitzki ranks fourth among National League shortstops with a fielding percentage of .984, trailing only Omar Vizquel, Jose Reyes and Jimmy Rollins. He has handled more chances than any shortstop in baseball.

By contrast, Braun has a horrific fielding percentage of .895, having committed a ghastly 20 errors in 191 chances (compared with Tulowitzki's 11 in 691). Braun makes Garrett Atkins look like Brooks Robinson.

So why aren't our gripes justified?

Because the humidor has fooled us. Because the rest of the country still sees the kid Rocks as a product of altitude. And because the numbers support that case.

Holliday and Tulowitzki are both terrific players at altitude, batting .381 and .339, respectively. They are considerably less impressive everywhere else, batting .292 and .248.

Humidor or no, the difference between the home Rocks and the road Rocks is greater than that difference for any other team. Still.

Yes, the scoring numbers have come down at Coors Field. It looks more like baseball than pinball these days. But it's still different. The Rocks are first in the National League in home batting average at .296. They are 11th in road batting average, at .254. Same team. Same players. Good hitters at home; mediocre hitters on the road. Same as it ever was.

The 42-point difference between home and road batting average is more than twice the next highest NL difference.

The difference in power is even greater. The Rocks are second in the league in home slugging percentage at .473. They are 16th, or last, in road slugging percentage, at .379. Same team. Same players. Nearly a 100-point difference in slugging, depending on where they play. This helps to explain why the Rocks are 13 games over .500 at home and 10 games below on the road.

The purpose of the humidor was to keep baseballs from drying out and entering deep space orbit so readily that baseball games produced football scores. It did that.

Time was, you could count on the Rockies finishing last in the league in earned-run average just because of where they played. Today, they stand eighth - middle of the pack - so baseball here is closer to normal than it was.

But the humidor couldn't change the composition of the air. It's still thin. And the difference between the Rocks' home and road hitting performance remains too great for national analysts to ignore.

The series in San Francisco that ended Wednesday was a case in point. The Rockies arrived from high altitude and scored two runs in the first two games. They broke out with eight in the finale, but they had already lost the series. Same as it ever was.

In fact, I would argue that their poor performance adjusting to pitch movement at sea level largely makes up for their rich numbers at altitude, but that's a tough sell to the rest of the country.

Personally, I think Tulowitzki is clearly the rookie of the year. He has been the best all-around player while playing the toughest position. I have a little more trouble justifying Holliday as MVP because the competition is closer and his nonaltitude numbers (.292, six homers, 43 RBI) aren't that helpful.

If neither is recognized with a national award this year, those differentials will be why. After all this time, baseball a mile high remains suspect across much of the country.

And whether we like it or not, the numbers still appear to validate those suspicions.

kriegerd@RockyMountainNews.com

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