Rockies In The World Series
Monday, October 15th, 2007There’s nothing quite so exhilarating as seeing your home team make it all the way. What a great post-season. Now, to see if we can get our hands on some tickets. And if we do, what should our big sign say?
Congratulations, Rockies. You guys are amazing. Just a baseball machine! You truly deserve to be where you are. (I mean, come on, winning 21 of the last 22 games and sweeping BOTH of the post-season series they played? Wow.)
By Ted R
October 24th, 2007 at 2:29 pm
Your “home team”? Is that kind of like the same way Hillary Clinton grew up a Yankee fan on the north side of Chicago? Did you grow up wearing the “CR” gear five minutes from the beach? The ghost of Gene Autry spits on you!
October 24th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
My friend, long have I been searching for the place where I would reside… happily outside of California. As you know, my distaste of the place is strong and abiding, for many personal reasons.
I never fell in love with any sports team from that state, try as I might. And now, after having recently moved out here to Colorado, I can tell you that it has been a breath of fresh air to be able to begin taking the time to love a home team for the first time.
Of course, it’s only the beginning, but I began watching them in earnest this year, never expecting them to get to where they are. If they’d lost I would have been perfectly happy because for the first time there was a team that felt more like “my team” than any one had before.
Good stuff. And nice try on your caustic comments. I think I grew up wearing a “home-team-goes-here” gear rather than the “CR”, but the “CR” logo fits nicely in that long-empty spot, now that you mention it.
I’m very thankful that the desert ground was so hard that I was never able to set up roots there. Many people like that sort of environment, and I’m happy for them. I, however, will never be one of them.
I will say right now that I think the Rockies team is working so well together that they have a shot to sweep this series, too. So, I’ll put it down here and now that I’m calling the series for the Rockies on Sunday, 4-0. That will be a happy day.
October 27th, 2007 at 8:35 pm
Okay, I must say, it’s disappointing to have been so off on my guess (and hope) about a Rockies sweep of the World Series. But, it’s not over yet and this team has overcome adversity before. We shall see. If they do win it, we’ll just have to celebrate here while watching a quite stadium in Boston.
October 28th, 2007 at 9:53 pm
As much as I hate to say it, my friend, your team never had a chance. One sports radio host recently calculated that, with their record during the regular season, the Rockies would have been the 9th best American League team. I expected Boston to sweep them, and they did. I’m not a National League fan. So, normally I root for the American League team in the series, even when it isn’t my team. But I was honestly hoping that the Rockies would win (or at least have a good showing). This is because I have come to hate the Red Sox. They pass themselves off as the underdog against the evil Yankees (I’m not a Yankees fan either), but their salary level is second only to the Yankees. And if I have to watch Manny Ramirez showboating when he hits a homerun one more time, I swear I’m going to take a hostage.
October 28th, 2007 at 10:33 pm
Sir Gimper,
I understand the calculations about the Rockies this season and what you’re describing about their chances. Keep in mind though that weeks ago there was a common debate in the sports world (for the division) regarding which team would end up coming in last, the Giants or the Rockies. The Rockies have absolutely decimated every estimation of them this season so far. And this from the team that is #25 on the total team payroll list in terms of raw dollars spent.
Was our hope misplaced? I don’t think so.
If you watch carefully, the single element I consistently saw as an issue was that the pitchers who had been from good to great during the regular season and the rest of the post-season after the eight day break couldn’t seem to manage to touch the strike zone for their lives. At least when the pressure was on.
But the pressure was pretty high before and they managed to do it. So what changed? If that single particular element had remained at least as consistent as it had before competing against the Red Sox, I think at the very least you would have seen your ‘good showing’.
Also, remember, if the Sox had entered this series while exhibiting the ‘keystone cops’ type of plays that they were three to four games before winning the pennant, I think the Rockies would have had a MUCH better chance. But the Red Sox did get their players to stop tripping on each other and kicking the ball away from each other to begin to win. And so now here we are.
And should we mention the choices and timing of when and which pitchers to pull in and take out on the Rockies’ part? But, as frustrating as it can be, it doesn’t make a huge difference. I’m just one who’s very quick to point out mismanagement. Though, I have to say, from what I’ve learned of coach Hurdle, I think the guy is a man among men. He’s no saint, but you can tell those players love him like a good father.
And I’ll bet that’s exactly how they’d describe him.
Either way, tonight’s loss is saddening, but we’ll get through it. It certainly has been a fun ride. Thanks to such a great and gutsy ball team. I hope they come back and shake things up again next year.
(Man, do I really have to wait that long?)
October 28th, 2007 at 11:18 pm
It seems to me that the biggest problem was the lack of hitting on the part of the Rockies. Yes, in two of the games the Rockies’ pitching did not do a good job of holding them. However in the other two games they did a great job. Holding the Red Sox to 2 runs on one night and 4 runs on another is quite an accomplishment. Unfortunately, on only one night did the Rockies score more than two runs, and that game was one where the pitching did not hold them. But despite what the so-called experts say, good pitching does not win games. It certainly helps you stay in the game, but you’ve got to be able to get timely hits, i.e. when you have men in scoring positions. That was the Rockies big failure. When they had men in scoring postion, they couldn’t put together some hits to bring them home.
October 29th, 2007 at 8:10 am
Clearly, the Rockies team was having a tough go of it going up against the Red Sox’ pitching staff. But, as in game 2, when the Rockies pitching staff did a better job, they were able to keep the score down to a reasonable level which at least gives their team a fighting chance at bat.
Though the game isn’t won on pitching, it can certainly be lost there, and this is what we saw in this case. The scores of the first and third games were pretty bad. And the third game highlighted what I’m talking about.
It was looking pretty bad when it was Red Sox leading 6-0. But then the Rockies rallied and nailed down 5 runs, making it 6-5, Red Sox. But shortly thereafter, the Rockies pitching staff could not pitch well enough to prevent more runs. And that’s the point. The gains made by the Rockies at bat were quickly lost and they lost the game 10-5. You could see what it did to the team to have their hard-earned gains at bat taken away from them in the next few innings.
If you have a pitching staff who can’t prevent the other team from circling the bases that much, you’d better have an AMAZING set of batters come to the plate to make up the difference. And if the opposing team’s pitchers are doing much better than your own, your batting efforts probably won’t amount to much.
All this is what we saw in this series, and that’s what I was describing earlier. We simply needed to stop all those runs so our batters could have had a fighting chance.