Cardiac Rockies ready for drama
Colorado is in a three-team race for the NL West title with Arizona, Los Angeles
ANAHEIM, CALIF.» With the calendar nearly turned to September and the Rockies in a three-team heat for their first division title, the only sure thing at this point is uncertainty.
It looks like Cardiac Colorado is either going to break the hearts of Rockies Nation in a dramatic, last-second sort of way, or the team is going to earn its first backto-back playoff berth in franchise history — with the potential, and foreseeable momentum, to do Rocktober-like damage from there.
Amid such throes of an emotional playoff run against the Diamondbacks and Dodgers (and Brewers, Cardinals and Phillies for a wild-card spot), Colorado is well-equipped, and wellseasoned, to handle the inevitable fist-pumping highs and head-inthe-hands lows that come with a pennant chase.
For every gritty victory such as Tuesday night’s 3-2 win over the Angels, there’s bound to be a gut punch to match. That happened in the opener of Colorado’s road trip here Monday when the bullpen gave away the game after DJ LeMahieu hit a grand slam in the top of the eighth to give the Rockies the lead.
“We’ve come back from tough losses all year — (Monday) was a tough one, the Cardinals on Sunday was a tough one,” LeMahieu said. “But we have a really good team, with really good chemistry and everyone playing their role. We’re a confident group, and we stay level.”
The Rockies’ ability to do that begins with manager Bud Black, who simply doesn’t get rattled. He smiled often during media sessions early in the season, and through a brutal June swoon when the season appeared to be going
off the rails. When quizzed on how Colorado was going to dig out of a big hole with an underperforming offense and unsteady relief core, he preached patience.
A thousand “that’s baseball’s” explanations later, the race is playing out exactly how Black said it would — a threeteam divi sion chase down to the wire, with the unflinching Rockies right in the thick of it.
“You have to be (steady), because if you’re not, the emotions will run too high one way or the other,” Black said. “Our guys have been really good about keeping everything in check, whether it’s a big win or a loss.”
That balance has been driven by core of veterans in MVP candidate Nolan Arenado and the stillreliable Charlie Blackmon, not to mention three players who have firsthand experience of the whirlwind of the franchise’s two greatest seasons. Newly added Matt Holliday was a central figure in the run to the 2007 World Series, catcher Chris Iannetta was part of both that team and the 2009 team that made the playoffs, and clubhouse glue Carlos Gonzalez also figured into that latter wild card squad.
Add in veteran Gerrardo Parra’s ability to keep it light, the soft spoken clutch that is LeMahieu, the bulldog mentality of starting pitchers Kyle Freeland, German Marquez and Jon Gray, as well as young sparkplugs like Trevor Story, David Dahl and Ryan McMahon, and the result is a roster that seems immune to pressure.
These Rockies are ready for the chase.