Arenado says of Rox: “We’re for real, man”

The clock in the clubhouse read 4:54 p.m., and the Rockies had recorded the last out of their 5-1 victory against San Francisco nearly an hour earlier. But here I was, killing time, hanging out, waiting to get an explanation from third baseman Nolan Arenado.

“You’re not really going to ask him about that, are you?” said Colorado teammate Ian Desmond, looking at me in disbelief.

Was there any choice except to ask? Earlier Saturday, under the mid-afternoon sun, me and 48,035 of my closest friends at Coors Field witnessed something as rare as Halley’s comet.

Arenado committed an error,

which we see about once an era. It happened in the second inning, for those of you keeping score at home. San Francisco batter Nick Hundley sent a firmly but routinely hit groundball toward third base. Arenado drifted to his left, stretched out the most golden glove in all of baseball … and failed to make the play. Wait … what? “I guess all good things have to come to an end,” explained Arenado, who was working on a 71game errorless streak, dating back to last season.

Hey, stuff happens. We all logically know that, sooner or later, James Bond will shock the bartender by ordering something other than a vesper martini. And Kendrick Lamar might eventually record a bad song. So be humble.

But, as sure the sun’s gonna come out tomorrow, I was ready to bet my bottom dollar Arenado would not commit another error until sometime in 2020.

“I got a little lazy there, I guess. I just reached over, and it hit off my glove,” said Arenado, more perplexed than angry when his mitt momentarily betrayed him. “I don’t know. It’s an error.”

Well, nobody’s perfect. But Arenado is close enough to get the baseball gods’ attention. After being blessed to witness well over 1,000 major-league games in person at ballparks across the country since the 1960s, there’s no hesitancy on my part to declare Arenado is the best defensive player I’ve ever seen, with all due respect to Roberto Clemente and Ozzie Smith.

Here’s the thing I love about Arenado. Ask if it’s humanly possible for a third baseman to stand an entire season at the hot corner without being eaten alive by at least one grounder, and he says: “I do believe I could do it.”

It is Father’s Day. The Rockies have already won 45 times, which would be a good number for this franchise at the all-star break. The feeling in LoDo is positively giddy, and can you blame Colorado fans? We aren’t used to seeing curveballs thrown for consistent strikes, four-game winning streaks and all those things that consistently happen in cities where baseball fever is an every summer thing.

“I think we’re for real, man,” Arenado said. “Everybody always asks about the tests we have to take. There are no more tests we have to pass. Now, it’s just about going out there and winning ballgames.”

Yes, it’s probably too early to project with absolute confidence. But it’s not too early to expect Colorado will be in the playoffs. Heck, if the Rockies play one game under .500 baseball the rest of the season, they will finish with 90 victories. All this team wants is a shot at creating some magic in October.

“And if we don’t, it would be pretty disappointing. It would be heartbreaking. But we’re a good team. And we expect to go out there and win ballgames,” Arenado said.

Then, he gave the rest of baseball fair warning. Carlos Gonzalez is hitting .218.

“One of our best players hasn’t got going yet. He’s going to transform our team,” Arenado said. “We get CarGo going the way we know CarGo can get going, I think we have a chance to be the most dangerous team in the major leagues.”

If a long-lost franchise advances to the playoffs and Arenado is not the most valuable player in the National League, then I will demand a full investigation into whether the Russians hacked the voting process.

Respectful of the Dodgers and the Diamondbacks in his own division, Arenado does offer one cause to pause the turbo-boost button on the Rockies’ bandwagon. “I think the only thing is we have young pitchers,” he said. “It’s not a concern, because they’re hungry and they compete. I just hope they don’t get tired.”

Seeing Arenado make an error is about as rare as catching a glimpse of Halley’s comet, which comes our way about every 75 years.

Anybody else in Colorado get the feeling this baseball season could be a once-in-a-lifetime experience?