MLB: Posting Losses, and some words about the Colorado Rockies   

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MLB:  A record below .500 after two months of an MLB season can be the start of a long and depressing goodbye, during which only Roy Hobbs from the novel and sports movie The Natural could make a difference, turn a team upward and guarantee a post-season billet. Not that such sudden and welcoming upturns haven’t happened, and this isn’t to say that any MLB team is today beyond a point in time from which recovery is impossible, and not to say that there aren’t honorable stations during a baseball season other than being able to play the game in October.

Rather, this is a brief take on the subject of losing in baseball, with some words about the Colorado Rockies.

Numerous MLB teams are under .500 today, several unsure why the variables that can spur frequent losses visited them, few with enough clues as to what those variables are. The Colorado Rockies are among these losing franchises, now in last place of the National League-West, at 15 wins and 26 losses. Is it from normally good hitters not hitting well anymore? Is it from pitchers now psyched by opposing team hitters, or just good arms turning out to be those that go bad after only four innings? No matter the switches in a line-up implemented by this losing team’s manager, how come nothing works the way it used to, when the team won frequently?

Uninvited mediocrity can begin to seem viral, unstoppable, and it will be if losing teams can’t indentify its problems and come up with the right solutions. Colorado Rockies manager, Jim Tracy, knows that when unmet expectations begin to define a team’s season, it has to go on the hunt, find what’s wrong, hit the mend and stay with it, thinking less about placement in the daily standings and more about being in the moments of each game, team members giving their all in spite of existing conditions and what the numbers say. Of course, easier said than done when players, manager and coaching staff haven’t had the time between games to gather enough information as to why they hit a wall and can’t seem to escape it.

Yet a losing team can still be awesome, for instance, producing in a single game numerous base-runners from lots of doubles and triples (never mind that they were left on base after the half inning), maybe also producing more successful stolen bases than the opposing team could deliver. There’s the beauty of a greater than 410 foot grand slam home run by a losing team’s hitter back from rehab in the minors (never mind that this hitter’s team would still lose the game in which the HR occurred). Add that back-to-the-ball catch by a losing team’s outfielder, which even the most respected analysts thought only the great Willy Mays could execute (never mind that the hit was a sacrifice fly, the opposing team having another RBI). And, how about the losing team’s best slugger producing that hit that caused him to have the highest batting average in his league?

During the Colorado Rockies narrative of more losses than wins, we’ve seen the team’s LHP Jamie Moyer become the oldest starting pitcher in baseball to win a game, veteran Todd Helton belt a walk-off grand slam HR, slugger Carlos Gonzales attain a better than .300 batting average versus every team played in May, except vs. the Mariners. We’ve seen the team accrue 11 runs in a single inning, and win games against each of the teams that are now ahead of the Rockies in the rankings.

So, what’s the point being made here? That within the framework of a team being in last place and under .500, there’s still exciting and positive baseball to be had. Final comment, there’s never a good reason to abandon a ballpark the way that Boston fans have been avoiding Fenway with each Red Sox loss. Real fans are of the game and not only of a chosen team. Make no mistake, the losing Rockies “have game!”

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