#24
Wednesday 28th April 2021 — Colorado Rockies vs San Francisco Giants @ Oracle Field
When I first figured I’d start writing about all these games, I think I approached it slightly naively. Baseball is not really like any sport I’ve ever been exposed to. The natural point of similarity is cricket — but the only real similarity is the bat and the ball. The sheer number of baseball games that occur in a season are mind-boggling, and it makes it hard to draw deep narratives because there exist so many data points to base your writing off. Now, you could argue that the greater the proliferation of data, the more accurate you can get in predicting outcomes. But this isn’t how sport works and baseball exists as one such sport where the margin of error is exceptionally high. When you play 162 games in a season, you don’t have to be on top form for them all. It helps to be, but history shows that even the best teams lose nearly 1/3 of their games (The 2001 Seattle Mariners won 116 games, so closer to a 0.75 win rate).
Now, take the above and try to contextualise the Rockies’ season so far. At this point, Ryan McMahon is tied for league lead in HRs, the Rockies’ starting pitching is churning out quality starts and, as usual, the Rockies are playing solid defence. So what is going wrong, and why do the Rockies’ have a losing record?
There’s quite a few reasons to be honest. The offence, although it has its flashes, is lacking consistency. The chopping and changing of the batting order shows this, and no player has really settled into their role in the order. This can have a significant effect on the team. For instance, RyMac leads MLB in HRs with 9, but he’s only hit for 15 RBIs. In his 3x HR game against the D-backs, all three shots were solo HRs. The Rockies are not getting base runners on at critical junctures of the game, and when they do, lacklustre batting leaves runner stranded and the Rockies chasing runs. To compound the lack of runs, the bullpen has been really poor. It seems we get one good game per reliever per week, with the rest blowing leads. This is evidenced by the fact that the Rockies’ starting pitchers have some of the highest number of quality starts in MLB, but not wins to back it up.
The season is still only 24 games old. We’re not even through 20% of the season, yet the warning signs are there for the Rockies’.
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Wednesday night proved to be one of those nights for the Rockies’. Alex Wood, pitching for the Giants, took 9 Rockies’ down with strikeouts and tossed six-plus innings of two-run baseball. He frustrated Rockies’ batters all day, dropped five of the first nine batters faced with the strikeout. Wood’s day ended in the 7th, when he allowed a walk and four singles to cut the Giants lead to 4–1, but the damage was done by the time he walks off the mound. Fuentes hit a RBI double play to bring the Rockies’ other run over.
The Rockies’ didnt manage a baserunner until the 5th inning. The Giants dropped 13 Rockies in a row before they allowed a baserunner, and it still took the Rockies another inning to get their first hit (a Garrett Hampson double).
In the 7th, Yancy Almonte pitched himself into based-loaded, before a single and a wild pitch scored two more runs for the Giants. Kinley relived him before the inning was over but didn’t get off the mound before he allowed a run himself.
The Rockies away woes are well documented and an upcoming away series against the red-hot Arizona Diamondbacks looms. The Rockies have a lot to work on, and not very long to work on it. This feels like a lost season already — and the next big worry for Rockies’ fans will no doubt be ‘which of our few remaining star players will be traded before the deadline’ — a wonderful worry to be having.
Final Score — Colorado Rockies 3 — San Francisco Giants 7
Rockies’ MVP — N/A
Rockies’ record — 9–15
