By Jordan Long
The Major League Baseball season is about a month in. The Colorado Rockies stand at 13-17, 6 games behind the L.A. Dodgers for 1st place in the National League West Division. They are also 4 games behind the Arizona Diamondbacks for the 2nd Wild Card spot.
The Rockies started the season slowly at 3-12. They weren’t hitting the baseball that well or giving pitchers run support. Since April 13, they have played better baseball with a record of 10-5. There are plenty of areas to improve on for them to reach the postseason for the 3rd year in a row.
The Rockies starting pitching hasn’t been there. The starters have allowed too much traffic on the base paths. This puts the pressure on them to shut down the opponents when this happens. The starters can’t stop them from scoring. Colorado’s starting pitching is not able to keep the ball down in the zone and that makes it easy for home runs. They have given up the 10th most home runs with a total of 26. The ERA for starting pitching is a disappointing 4.98 which is not a recipe for success.
When the starters are struggling, this forces Manager Bud Black to go to the bullpen earlier than he wants to. Luckily for Black, the bullpen is shutting teams down. They don’t give up many runs which is keeping Colorado in games with an ERA of only 3.45.
The Rockies know it isn’t just the pitching that needs work. Teams know in order to win games, the offense needs to be there. The Rockies haven’t had timely hits or smacked the baseball that well. Their team average is an unimpressive .232 ranking 22nd in all of baseball. Batters aren’t being patient at the plate and swinging at pitches outside the zone. These are strikeouts with a total of 287, 4th highest in MLB. The Rockies know the offense must be better for them to have any chance of reaching the postseason.
With these numbers for both pitching and offense, Colorado is lucky to be only 4 games below .500. Colorado needs to pitch better for the rest of the year and not allow as many runs. If they can pitch into at least the 6th inning if not deeper, that will go a long way for them. It will also give the bullpen a chance to rest. The defense can bail them out with ground balls and fly outs.
For the offense, Colorado must figure out ways to be on base either by base hits or walks. This will add traffic and might help Colorado on the scoreboard which will put pressure on opponents. It is only one month into the season and there is time for them to turn themselves into a winner.
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