What’s true in any other line of work is true in baseball – a connection in the right place can make all the difference.

As bench coach for the Colorado Rockies, former Sky Sox manager Tom Runnells now has the ear of new manager Jim Tracy – and that might turn out to be the little advantage that some Sky Sox players need.

“(Runnells), he spent a lot of time with me and he knows me now better than anybody else,” said center fielder Carlos Gonzalez, who came to the organization in the trade that sent slugger Matt Holliday to Oakland. “All they’ve seen of me was spring training, you know, not even a month.”

In many ways, Friday’s shuffling that started with Clint Hurdle’s firing and Runnells’ promotion to the big-league club gives the Sky Sox their own representative at Coors Field. Rockies general manager Dan O’Dowd has seen several Sky Sox games and hears near-daily updates, but there’s nothing like seeing a team play every day.

“I guess it’s going to impact everyone to a certain extent,” said outfielder Matt Miller, who hasn’t played beyond Triple-A despite 108 RBIs at two levels last year and 40 so far this season. “I don’t think Clint Hurdle was up in the major leagues saying, ‘Oh, Matt Miller is not going to be here.’ It just wasn’t like that. But to have (Runnells) up there, he knows our strengths. He might say, ‘Hey, check out Mike McCoy or Gonzalez.’

“Especially for a lot of guys like Kenny Perez, they’re new in the organization and maybe they aren’t as well-known. So that’s got to be a positive to have him up there.”

Rene Lachemann, the Sky Sox interim manager and a former big-league manager, said the evaluation process would start with O’Dowd and Tracy – but the influence couldn’t hurt.

“With Tommy Runnells there, he’ll have a lot more information for those guys about what guys down here can do,” Lachemann said.

While Runnells settles into his role in Denver, the transition in Colorado Springs figures to be seamless.

New manager Stu Cole – who begins today – is a former Sky Sox player who has coached the bulk of the Colorado Springs roster during his time at Double-A Tulsa.

“He’s the type that just lets you go out and play,” said Eric Young Jr., who played with the Drillers in 2008. “I enjoyed my season with him last year and look forward to him coming up.”

For Miller, it’s the best of both worlds. A voice in the majors and a manager he’s played under for parts of every season since 2005.

“That’s a more comfortable situation, for me at least, than if they outsourced the manager or something like that and got some new guy,” Miller said. “It’s a weird situation to have a guy as your manager every day for a couple of months and then he’s gone. But this is a good way to do it.”

Sky Sox outfielder Matt Miller thinks that Tom Runnells promotion to Rockies bench coach is “going to impact everyone to a certain extent.” Photo by KEVIN KRECK, THE GAZETTE