MLB: Colorado Rockies & That Up/Down Cycle
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35th Annual Rocky Mountain Senior Games, June 6 – 10, Greeley , Col.
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MLB: IT seemed that the Colorado Rockies had reached the start of an upturn from its numerous May losses with LHP Jamie Moyer’s 6-1 win against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Wednesday, May 16, and as the Rockies were ahead of the DB’s mid-game the following afternoon, 4-1---but the Rockies couldn’t advance enough during innings five through nine on Thursday to keep ahead of an Arizona line-up demonstrating that a string of base runners, even from successive singles and walks, can win a ballgame easier than the sporadic power shot. In those later innings of Thursday’s game, the DB’s were placing line-drives and fast grounders everywhere on the map, overcoming a deficit and pulling the score to a 9-7 win.
Observed of late, and certainly during Thursday's vs. Arizona game, have been too many Rockies pitches fed to opposing teams just the way hitters would want them for the base hit, plus some Rockies fielding that hasn't been where struck balls can land shallow but out of the infield, or low through an infield. Also, of late the Rockies line-up hasn’t been outsmarting opposing starters, relievers and closers enough to overcome the Rockies pitching that has allowed too many runs. Disappointing yesterday was a ninth inning opportunity for a Colorado
A good rotation and bull pen produces low ERA’s consistently. Saying that runs win a ballgame is stating the very obvious---it isn’t hard science knowing that the fewer runs that a team gives away to the opposition, then the easier it becomes to prevail and win, even with marginal hitting. And in light of the fact that hitting a baseball well in the MLB is among the hardest tasks that any athlete could achieve, even for the Josh Hamiltons and Albert Pujols of the game, "there is just so much that a competent line-up can do.” Surely there’s sufficient competency within the Rockies line-up to put runs on the board. They accrued 13 runs against the DB’s in the last two days, and though the Rockies lost to the DB’s yesterday, that’s five more runs than the Arizona
Not that an improved line-up wouldn’t enhance the Rockies chances for winning more games; rather, even with a Moyer win, and some promise shown in LHP Christian Friedrich, and yesterday starter Juan Nicasio allowing only one run in his five innings of play, “the Rockies rotation and bull pen still need to advance in skills several more rungs up the ladder of competency for the ERA reductions that bring on wins a lot faster than could a surge in hitting.”
Presently, the Rockies are 15 wins/22 losses, below .500 and second from the bottom in the National League’s West Division, and two games from last within the NL. Not good, and no-one within the Rockies organization is exactly sure why, but more for thought now is what it will take to win more games.
Yet according to some hidden laws that not even Nobel prize scientists can figure out, the Rockies will begin winning some games in late May and June, and when they do no-one on the team or staff will be exactly sure why it has happened. . . Quite often in baseball a team that’s been winning a lot gets like persons winning at poker; they want to up the ante, they want to reach for an even higher percentage of wins, ignoring that doing so causes change, alters what has caused win after win and so the team starts to lose. As April came to a close for a Rockies team above .500, maybe someone needed to shout out the cliché, “If it aint broke, don’t fix it!”
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