As of this morning, the Colorado Rockies are in first place. Just let that sink in for a minute. Feels nice, right? Things have gone exceedingly well so far in this young season.
Naysayers, before you get fired up, let me just stop you here. I’m not declaring this team to be great by any means. All I’m saying is that the first five games have given us reason to be cautiously optimistic. We can’t get too far ahead of ourselves, but there have been some encouraging signs. I will say though, I’m pretty certain that the Rockies will win more than 52 games, as a certain well respected analyst predicted. Either way, the first week was a lot of fun to watch.
A few Sunday morning talking points:
Playing Hard
Often when a new manager comes in there is a refreshment of energy. I think that has definitely been the case. The Rockies are clearly playing harder. The defense looks dramatically improved, as does the overall hustle. Guys seem to care about playing baseball and that’s great to see. Safe to say, we’ve seen significant improvement in the ‘give-a-s***’ department.
New Backstop
Interestingly, one of the byproducts of the recent facelift received by Coors Field is that the backstop was moved six feet closer to home plate. Coors now has the second shortest backstop in baseball. Only Wrigley has a shorter distance between the wall and home plate and it was built like a thousand years ago, or something like that.
Clearly, the Monforts are making it a priority to turn a trip to Coors into the most fan friendly experience possible. Apparently, the wall was moved in so that they could create some pretty swanky perks for those fans lucky enough to land some of the best seats in the house. I can’t argue that this is a bad thing. However, it is worth noting that in baseball’s most notorious hitters’ park, the Rockies could use all the foul territory they can get. Outs are at a premium. Maybe they’re trying to create a rebound to help Rosario with his passed ball problem.
Pitching Stalwarts
As of this morning, the Rockies have made one trip through their starting rotation. This horrible ragtag sad excuse for a starting rotation has turned in four quality starts in five games. Chacin, Francis, and Garland were particularly impressive. Does this mean that the Rockies starting pitching woes are over? Absolutely not. However, for the first time in a long time, we have reasons to be encouraged about the Rockies pitching.
It is still way too early to start tossing around pitching metrics like they’re reliable, but it is worth noting that the Rockies’ BABIP is pretty low right now. That’s a product of two things: quality defense, and unfortunately, a little luck. Because of Coors, as a staff, they usually have one of the highest BABIPs in baseball. So, you can expect opponents to post some more runs on the board in the future — especially when they aren’t playing the Padres. However, if the defensive improvement holds, that will be a tremendous help. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out with the rotation, but the early results have been extremely encouraging. I don’t think anyone expected them to pitch this well.
Padres picked over Rockies?
A lot of ‘experts’ picked the Rockies to finish last in the West. After watching the Padres for the last two nights, I’m wondering how that’s possible. San Diego is a bad team with lineup that is only slightly less feeble than the Astros. As a team, they are hitting .190. I found myself wondering if there was any Padres position player I’d take over the Rockies player at the same position. The answer is a ‘hell no’.
I think some people got really carried away with the Rockies hate this offseason. After last year, it was easy to forget how great CarGo and Tulo truly are and many seriously underestimated this lineup. I’m not even convinced yet that they’ll flirt with .500, but I know they are much better than the Padres. The Rockies have at least three players that are better than anyone on San Diego’s entire roster. I’m extremely confident that the Rox will finish with a better record.
Hopefully, this upcoming week goes as well as last.
