DENVER -- Kaz Matsui knows how to make a good first impression. He's opened each of his three big-league seasons by hitting a home run in his first at-bat, including an inside-the-park home run this year in San Diego.

Matsui displayed the same flare for the dramatic when he opened his Rockies career in Milwaukee last Tuesday, kicking off a four-game hitting streak and hitting .412 (7-for-17) over the course of his first five games with the Rockies. He matched a career high with three hits on Saturday night and has notched a stolen base and five runs while sparking the top of the Rockies lineup with a .500 on-base percentage.

With his old team coming to Colorado on Tuesday, Matsui gets a chance for a quick "then-and-now" retrospective, and he revisited the circumstances that led him out of the Mets clubhouse and on to Colorado.

"I wanted to play," Matsui said of his frustrating '06 season in New York, where he hit .200 in 38 games and lost his starting job before the trade. "That was actually a little bit painful to not play on the field. I left the Mets because I didn't do well. I didn't make good results."

Matsui arrived in New York shouldering expectations high enough to match the $20 million, three-year contract he received before the 2004 season -- the first Japanese infielder to sign with a big-league club. His arrival in Colorado didn't generate quite the same level of anticipation, since the price tag the Rockies agreed to was Eli Marrero, who was hitting .217 with four homers and 10 RBIs in 30 games for the Rockies.

Colorado had nothing to lose in the bargain, with the Mets picking up the remainder of the $8 million due to Matsui this year, save for what was left on Marrero's $750,000 one-year contract.

Furthermore, though the deal went down on June 9, Matsui went straight to Triple-A Colorado Springs, where he spent two months getting his groove going, far from the maddening crowd, before coming up to the parent club.

The Rockies took the low-stakes gamble, confident that trading the fish-bowl, pressure-packed atmosphere of New York baseball for the mellower mile-high environs of a club that tends to fly below the radar could help Matsui regain the form he showed as a seven-time All-Star shortstop in Japan's Pacific League, where he hit .309 with 150 home runs and 306 steals through nine seasons with the Seibu Lions.

"Pressure doesn't matter to me," Matsui said through an interpreter in Denver last weekend. "It doesn't matter if I play here or at Shea Stadium. It's the same thing."

Whatever the reasons, Matsui has started strong in Colorado, splitting time between short and second and providing an effective one-two punch at the top of the lineup with Todd Helton hitting behind him in the two-hole. The two were teammates on the Maui Stingrays in the old Hawaii Winter League after the '95 season, and in three starts together with the Rockies the tandem has hit a combined .407 (11-for-27), energizing the offense and pacing the club's rebound with a series victory over San Diego after a dismal, winless road trip.

"There's no one like Helton hitting second," Matsui said of the pleasure of hitting in front of one of the game's elite swingers. "He can hit a long home run, he can single. He can do whatever."

Like most players, Matsui has a preference for seeing his name in the lineup on a daily basis, and manager Clint Hurdle wasted no time in penciling him in four out of his first six days. And though second baseman Jamey Carroll has excelled for much of the season atop the lineup, late-season struggles from both Carroll and Clint Barmes at short have opened a window to regular playing time for Matsui.

"It's a pleasure to play as a starter," Matsui said. "If it's leadoff or whatever position I'm batting, that's OK for me. I probably won't hit third or fourth, but first or second, I can handle that. Of course, there is some pressure, but I just have to do my best."

He has by no means taken over the job of either Barmes or Carroll, but in the dog days of summer, with the pennant race still tantalizingly within reach for the Rockies, Hurdle can be expected to juggle some starts in the middle infield in an effort to maximize the potential productivity there.

"We'll see if Kaz has a hot hand, and if he does, we're going to play it," Hurdle said over the weekend. "He showed the ability [in Colorado Springs], as he has in his past history, to get on base, to steal a base. He can handle the bat. He's probably got some closet power that you're not aware of. He'll click a ball."

With an eye to the future, the Rockies are eager to see what they've got in Matsui, who will be a free agent at the end of the season. Matsui would welcome the chance to reestablish himself as an everyday player, whether in Colorado or on a club willing to commit to penciling him into their '07 infield.

"I have no idea yet until the season ends," Matsui said about his future with the Rockies. "I have to do my best to be successful here, and, at the same time, I have to make some good numbers."

So far, the numbers have been on his side. Whether it's the easy-going atmosphere of the Mile-High City or simply a recharged player feeling healthy after a pair of injuries that derailed his season -- a strained knee caused Matsui to open the season on the disabled list, and back spasms slowed his progress at Colorado Springs -- the infielder has responded with the spark the Rockies needed.

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