Evans: Backing into playoffs a losing strategy for Rockies
Sep 26, 2017, 4:04 PM | Updated: 4:10 pm
Watching the Colorado Rockies attempt to nail down the final wild card spot has been incredibly frustrating.
Instead of going out and grabbing it with inspired, aggressive play, the Rockies have relied on other teams to do their dirty work. They’re meekly playing out the schedule hoping they can nervously look up after, removing their hands from in front of their eyes, to find out they indeed did make it.
This is a team that, going into Tuesday night’s game against the Miami Marlins (by the way, plenty of good seats available … more on that later), had lost six of their last eight games and eight of their last 12.
Their top batters are pressing (for the PC crowd out there) or choking (realist crowd). Guys like Carlos Gonzalez, Trevor Story, Ian Desmond, Mark Reynolds, and D.J. LeMahieu have all come up short time after time in big moments.
Even the Rockies’ rocks — Nolan Arenado and Charlie Blackmon — have not been immune from squeezing their bat handles into sawdust.
In the last eight games, Colorado’s averaging a measly three runs per game. They have been shut out three times. They are terrible with runners in scoring position.
They have had multiple double-digit strikeout games. By my count, they have had at least four innings where they’ve gone three up and three down all on strikeouts.
No working the count. No trying to get on base. No small ball. Just a lot of “hero” swings.
Since the beginning of the summer, the Rockies have the second-worst record in the National League. In fact, their winning percentage is below what it was last summer and fall — a stretch that resulted in manager Walt Weiss getting fired.
The good news is it hasn’t come back to bite them … yet.
The St. Louis Cardinals and Milwaukee Brewers are equally flawed teams that haven’t been able to muster enough of a charge to overtake wild card spot in which Colorado’s all but put a welcome mat in front.
It’s a bad look backing into a playoff spot, mainly because this is a franchise short on goodwill.
They don’t have the kind of history that suggests they can limp into the playoffs and flip that switch and become a contender. The only time they were — back in Rocktober 2007 — featured a team that got on an incredible roll, swept into the playoffs. and continued hammering opponents until an impossibly-long layoff between the NLCS and the World Series became too much to overcome.
This isn’t a team that can be trusted. Deep down, the fans know this.
The crowds for games have been embarrassing for a so-called playoff contender. In order for this skeptical fan base to buy in, the Rockies have to storm into the playoffs and leave no doubt they belong.
They may still back in. But no one will believe they’ll be there long.
