Rockies have Triple Crown hopeful in Gonzalez

Won't the voters, manager and players feel silly about having left Carlos Gonzalez off the National League All-Star team if he earns the Triple Crown this season. The two teams that traded him will feel even worse.

"Everything happens for a reason, everything works out pretty well," the Rockies outfielder said in his team's clubhouse at Citi Field yesterday, about to enter last night's game with a league-leading .326 batting average, tied for fifth with 25 home runs and tied for third with 77 runs batted in.

Those statistics give him a shot at becoming the first to win those three categories since Carl Yastrzemski did it in 1967. They will make the Diamondbacks and Athletics kick themselves for having dealt him in big trades involving Dan Haren and Matt Holliday, respectively.

"I remember getting traded from Arizona my first time, I was very young, I didn't know how the process went. It was really hard on me. The second time, I got traded here, I understood more. I feel more comfortable now, I get along with the players, the coaches. It's been so far, so good for me," said the 24-year-old outfielder from Maracaibo, Venezuela.

Gonzalez is young enough to say that countrymen such as teammate Melvin Mora and Mets closer Francisco Rodriguez are his heroes. Yet he is mature enough to be the cornerstone of a team that still has postseason hopes. He has been good all season, but exceptional since the All-Star break.

Even a virus couldn't stop him. He was almost too sick to play against the Cubs July 30, but batting coach Don Baylor talked the lefthanded batter into playing because the Rockies were facing a righthanded pitcher. He was promised to be rested the next day. "But I went 4-for-6," he said, and Baylor insisted that he start against a lefty the next day. "That's when I hit for the cycle." Gonzalez finished that resoundingly, with a walk-off home run.

"It was kind of like one of those things that was meant to be," he said. "That's why we like to keep ourselves in the lineup because you never know what's going to happen."