This is a September blog about the Colorado Rockies. Do you think it will be a positive one? Let's find out.
Coming off a series loss at home to the Cardinals, the Rockies traveled to the Bronx this week for a three-game tilt with the New York Yankees. In the first of these encounters, on Tuesday, they faced off against Cy Young contender Cam Schlittler, who threw seven innings of one-run ball to lower his ERA to 2.01. Not looking good so far.
Colorado countered with the rookie Gabriel Hughes, who brought a 6.19 ERA and zero major-league wins in 10 career starts. Hughes got no help from his defense in the bottom of the first. With two outs and a runner on, Luis García Jr. knocked a little single to left-center that turned into trouble: Left fielder Jake McCarthy boofed it off his glove and then his foot to give each runner an extra 90 feet. The real disaster, however, was his throw back to the infield, which was somehow invisible to all of his teammates. Catcher Hunter Goodman, ostensibly the target of the toss, did his best impression of a blogger waking up 20 minutes after their shift started. (At least, that's what I imagine; I've never experienced such a thing.) Goodman jolted into action just as the ball passed him by, and the run scored before he could get to the backstop.
The Rockies went on to lose 5-3, with Goodman mustering a a two-run shot in the game's penultimate at-bat to make it look closer than it felt. Colorado is now 55-89, which is an improvement on last year's 43-win campaign but still has them tied with the Angels for baseball's fewest victories. In keeping with franchise tradition, the offense uses its home-field altitude to mash at a decent rate, but the pitching has been terrible at any elevation. The closest thing to a legitimate MLB starter on this squad is 36-year-old free-agent signing Tomoyuki Sugano, who's managed a winning record despite an ERA of 5.19. I'm not sure the last time I saw a team improve by something like 20 wins without conveying any sense of optimism for its future, but maybe next year they'll hearken back to the glory days of 2021, which is the last time they finished fourth instead of fifth.
I guess this was not a very positive September blog about the Colorado Rockies.
