"As the noted baseball analysts Mick Jagger and Keith Richards pointed out, time waits for no one, including the winningest pitcher in Rockies history.

Nearly halfway through spring training, Aaron Cook is in a race against time to make the club's opening-day roster, and time is winning.

The Rockies should let it. For a team that hopes to contend for a division title over a six-month season, it makes zero sense to rush Cook through a truncated spring training and risk a recurrence of arm trouble when the Rocks have viable alternatives to be their fifth starter in April.

Cook bristles at the suggestion he won't be ready, so for the moment the Rocks seem content to let it play out. But if they don't put him on a rushed timetable, he can't get there from here.

"The calendar doesn't stop," pitching coach Bob Apodaca said. "I can't be concerned with April 1 with Aaron.

"I want him, when he does toe the rubber, it's because now he's healthy. And so he'll have to do those things that are required for all of our starters leaving spring training. He's going to have to reach approximately that 100-pitch plateau. But I don't want to rush him. . . . That's why spring training is six weeks long. It's for starting pitching."

With 23 days remaining before the opener, Cook still hasn't thrown a pitch in a Cactus League game. He was shut down after his second bullpen session when he felt stiffness in his throwing shoulder.

He began the road back Monday by playing a 90-foot game of catch for 10 minutes. Trainer Keith Dugger reported it went well, and Cook will play long toss today, on flat ground. After that, he'll need to throw off a mound at least a couple of times before he's ready to pitch in a game.

By then, chances are he won't have time for more than two or three starts before the team breaks camp. Under a normal timetable, that's not enough to get much beyond four innings."