Troy Tulowitzki showed his stubborn side and it appears Walt Weiss might have a strained relationship with his All-Star shortstop after a pair of quotes came out on Wednesday indicating the shortstop isn’t necessarily willing to do whatever it takes to help the club win and his manager doesn’t know how to handle it.

Nick Groke of the Denver Post was with the Rockies on Wednesday – a day that resulted in another loss to the Oakland Athletics – and landed a pair of quotes from Tulowitzki and Weiss that have those of us at Mile High Sports scratching our collective heads.

Tulo, who is riding a 14-game hitting streak and is one of the hottest hitters in baseball, was rested in the rubber-match with Oakland. There’s nothing particularly new with the All-Star shortstop getting an afternoon pass – that’s pretty much a given every Sunday over the past several years. But the Rockies have been on a recent slide (now losing 4 of the last 5) and their offense has been sputtering, barring Tulowitzki and current NL Player of the Week, Nolan Arenado.

So, it seemed, even if Tulowitzki was going to get some rest, he would at least DH for the series-deciding final game. Instead, Weiss started Daniel Descalso at shortstop, with Wilin Rosario in the DH slot and Ben Paulsen at first base.

This brings us back to Groke’s quotes. Here’s the text, verbatim, from his article, including Groke’s explanation on the line of questioning…

“If I’m going to be the DH, I would say: ‘Hey, just put me in the lineup. I wanna play defense,'” Tulowitzki said.

Weiss also had an opportunity to use Tulowitzki as a DH in Houston last month. But Tulowitzki said, essentially, ‘If I can play, why can’t I be a shortstop too?’

“Yeah, I was going to DH him there. He said something to that effect,” Weiss said. “So I didn’t even ask him today.”

There are two ways to read between the lines on these quotes, and niether of them is particularly good.

Our Take No. 1: Tulo has a problem with these scheduled days off. He’s a known competitor. Are these “scheduled” days off actually “forced” days off? If Tulo wants to play and the team is making him take time off (perhaps to keep him healthy so he’s easier to trade), is Tulo being sour grapes and refusing to play, even when his team could use him as DH? As the longest-tenured Rockie, Tulo should carry at least a modicum of leadership, which includes DHing when asked. Saying, essentially, play me all the way or don’t play me isn’t the kind of leadership this team needs now or in the future.

Our Take No. 2: Clearly there’s a communication breakdown between Weiss and his star shortstop. It’s sad because if there’s one person on the roster that Weiss should be able to connect with, it’s Tulo. Weiss was an All-Star shortstop himself and was a passionate, energetic player just like Tulowitzki. Weiss didn’t have half the talent Tulo has (sorry, Walt), but he made the absolute most of what he had. The fact that he didn’t even bother to ask Tulo whether or not he would DH on Thursday speaks volumes to the state of their relationship, which is clearly not good at this point.

Trade rumors have been circling Tulowitzki like vultures and Rockies losses have been piling up like carcasses for much of this year – and pretty much every year since 2011 – so it’s understandable that the shortstop is feeling beleaguered. It’s probably going to far to say that Tulowitzki is a problem in the locker room. But this public exchange shows that there’s a big divide over what Weiss thinks is best for the team and how Tulowitzki wants to be utilized.

Our Final Take: Seems like it really is time for the long-discussed Tulo trade to happen so both sides can move on.