A long, long time ago (12 days to be exact), the Colorado Rockies were a mere 4 games above .500, in 4th place in the NL West, 6.5 games back of Arizona, 4 games back of San Diego for the Wild Card, and with just 14 games left in the season, reserving early-October tee times.Fast forward to the present, and they find themselves right smack in the middle of things...winners of 10 in a row, 2.5 games back of 'Zona in the West, and 1 back of the Pads (and tied with the Phillies) for the Wild Card. What's interesting is that if any of the NL's division leaders were finishing strong, Colorado's run would have been classified as nothing more than "too little too late."
Consider this. During the Rockies' wining streak, New York is 4-7, Philly is 7-3, the Cubs are 6-4, Milwaukee is 6-5, Arizona is 6-4, and San Diego is 7-4. In other words, the three division leaders (Mets, Cubs, D-Backs) are 16-15, while the four teams battling for their playoff lives (Phillies, Brewers, Padres, Rockies) are 30-12!
Now, with just 4 days left in the regular season, there are an outlandish 8 (!) NL teams who are technically still alive (the 7 clubs I mentioned earlier, plus the Braves who are 4 back in the East and Wild Card). You have 3 teams that are within a game and a half of their division leader or the Wild Card. And you also have prognosticators like Buster Olney saying Troy Tulowitzki should win Rookie of the Year, not Ryan Braun; a simply nutty statement that's as trendy to say right now as, "oh yeah, I'm a big Rockies fan...have been all year."So, as I have been known to do from time to time, allow me to make a few bold predictions. First, the Rockies will lose again this season. They have one more at LA tonight (Franklin Morales against Esteban Loaiza), before closing out their season at home, against (who else) the Diamondbacks. Ace Brandon Webb was scratched due to the "weather" today, but the D-Backs won anyway. This means they have a pretty strong trump card this weekend (although he is 0-3 with a 6.47 against the Rockies in 2007).
Furthermore, Colorado will miss the playoffs by a slim margin. Yes, they play great D and have Matt Holliday, but I'm still not buying this pitching staff. There are 4 spots up for grabs, and 7 teams legitimately in the running, meaning 3 have to be left out. My guess is it'll be Milwaukee, San Diego, and Colorado.
And finally, Ryan Braun will win Rookie of the Year by a large margin. I do think defense matters (Troy is Gold Glove caliber, while Braun sometimes looks like he's playing third, barehanded). In fact, his superior defense is why Dustin Perdoia should be the AL Rookie of the Year. But no AL rookie is doing what Braun is doing (.325, 33, 94, 14 steals in 109 games). Hell, there aren't too many non-rookies who have had that kind of 110-game stretch this year.
Come Sunday night, we'll see if I know what I'm talking about.
3 comments:
"Nutty"?
One guy plays gold-glove defense at what might be the most important position. The other guy plays defense like he's playing with a glove made of gold (making 3 errors in the game last night).
Defense has to count for something. So while I would probably vote for Braun, he's not that far ahead of TT.
Maybe I shouldn't get so fired up and post a comment without reading the entire post. I see now that I basically said the same thing you did.
TT's offensive numbers aren't bad either. If he has a big weekend, he could finish 100-25-100-.300. That's pretty good from a premium defensive position. The NL is loaded at SS with the 3 R's (Reyes, Ramirez and Rollins), so he won't win the Silver Slugger. But if he were in the AL, he might win it. Go compare his numbers to Jeter, Cabrera and Guillen, and you'll get an idea of just how good he's been.
I kind of don't want the Rockies to make the playoffs because that would mean Steve Philips was right about something and I just don't want to live in that kind of world.
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