Rockies send Ian Stewart back down to make room for Ty Wigginton - MLB

Six at-bats later, he’s gone.

Ian Stewart was demoted back to Triple-A Colorado Springs for the second time this year Friday, opening up a spot for the returning Ty Wigginton.

Manager Jim Tracy said after last Sunday’s game that Stewart was “either going to play his way in or play his way off the team.”

Stewart, though, was given just six more at-bats afterwards. Granted, he was 0-for-6 in that span, leaving him with a ridiculous .064 average in 47 at-bats. Still, if the idea was to challenge Stewart, maybe he deserved more than two games, with all of his at-bats coming in front of the pitcher, to respond?

One wonders if Stewart has now made his last out for the Rockies. While he put up solid overall numbers in his first 2 1/2 seasons (he hit .246/.334/.458 with 53 homers and 172 RBI in 1,077 at-bats from 2008-10), he failed to meet the team’s high expectations offensively or defensively.

Given that Tracy has always favored high-average hitters and that’s simply not Stewart’s game, a trade might be in everyone’s best interests. The Rockies might be selling low, but given the number of third basemen hurt throughout the NL, there should be some team out there willing to give up a legitimate prospect for him. Stewart is just 26, he hits lefties better than most left-handed hitters and he’s not a Coors Field creation (his 751 road OPS is just 20 points lower than his home mark).

The Rockies, meanwhile, will go it with Wigginton and Jose Lopez. Ideally, Lopez would stop floundering one of these weeks, because he’s the vastly superior defender. However, he’s barely above Stewart territory with a .155/.174/.238 line in 84 at-bats. For that reason, Wigginton figures to get a chance to secure the job if he comes back strong after 16 days with a strained oblique.

Roger Clemens will be an analyst for ESPN when the defending World Series champion Houston Astros host the Chicago White Sox on opening day.

Clemens made four appearances on last year’s KayRod Cast with Michael Kay and Alex Rodriguez. He will be stepping in on March 30 for David Cone, who will be doing the New York Yankees opener against the San Francisco Giants on YES Network.

“Roger has been sort of a friend of ours for the last year, so to speak, he’s in. He’s been engaged, knowledgeable and really present,” said ESPN Vice President of Production Phil Orlins. “You know, whatever past may be, he’s still tremendously engaged and he really brought that every time he was with us.”

Clemens was a seven-time Cy Young winner but his career after baseball has been tainted by allegations of performance-enhancing drug use. He is a Houston native and pitched for the Astros for three seasons.

Orlins said that with the rules changes and pitch clock, it is important to have a pitcher in the booth with Karl Ravech and Eduardo Perez.

“We don’t feel like we have to have the dynamic of Eduardo with a pitcher, but we certainly think that works. Throw in the added factor of rule changes and it is better to have a batter-pitcher perspective,” Orlins said.

Orlins did not say if this would open the door for future opportunities for Clemens as an ESPN analyst.