DENVER – Sometimes, it’s easy to forget that Charlie Blackmon was underrated until about a year-and-a-half ago.
Depending on how you feel about accounting for Coors Field and hitting numbers, his fifth-place finish in MVP voting last season suggests he is still a bit underrated.
Debuting to little fanfare in 2013, he burst onto the scene with an incredibly hot April in 2014 and cooled off for most of the rest of the season, leaving many to wonder if the early production was a bit fluky.
But he proved the doubters wrong over the next three campaigns, improving in nearly every facet of his game each year.
Then, early in 2018, it was announced that his hard work would be rewarded with a six-year extension worth up to $108 million.
Since then, things have been… OK.
The Colorado Rockies have played to an unusual schedule so far in 2018, only now in late May beginning to balance out the number of home games to road games.
While there are arguments to be made that this could ultimately work out in the team’s favor, the consensus in the clubhouse is that this has made it a bit more difficult to adjust to the nuances of altitude in the early going.
One of the best hitters in the game over the last couple of years, Blackmon came into the homestand with just three extra-base hits at Coors Field, an unsustainable stat if ever there was one.
He told a gathering of media that he feels it can take some time to get used to hitting at altitude, even for him, certainly for the team, and that’s a big part of why they’ve suddenly put up at least five runs in five straight games.
I caught up with him later to ask a few follow-up questions, beginning with how long he thinks it generally takes to get used to the differences in the way pitches move—and even the way the ball plays off the bat—here in Denver.
“I don’t know, maybe just a couple homestands,” he replied. “We played two or three different series in a row now. I think right about now guys are getting used to what it means to play at Coors Field.”
On top of that, Blackmon, after a record-breaking campaign in 2018, has become a focal point of opponent’s game plans, leading to a much more careful approach when he stands in the batter’s box.
I ask if he feels like he is being pitched differently than before.
“Maybe a little bit,” he allowed. “Maybe just a little more willingness to stay out of the middle of the plate in hitter’s counts.”
He’s not exactly in some terrible place at the plate, slashing .276/.368/.508 through 51 games, good for a wRC+ of 123. Of course, everyone involved with the Rockies, including Blackmon, would love to see him get closer to the .331/.399/.601 (141 wRC+) player he was a year ago.
With 814 MLB games under his belt, Blackmon has seen slumps and hot stretches alike, but that’s not to say there is nothing different about what is happening right now.
“It’s probably not a new adjustment,” he said. “It’s just having to make that adjustment more often. A lot of times when you’ve been good, people pitch you a certain way, and now I feel like I’m not particularly hot right now. But, sometimes I feel good. But either way, I’m being pitched as if I was Nolan Arenado or something,” he said with a laugh.
Some, including myself, have suggested there may be a silver lining to the fact that each member of the lineup (sans Arenado) has hit under their career numbers so far this season. An argument could be made that you want to be playing your best baseball going into the final months of the season anyway.
I asked Blackmon if he subscribes to such a notion.
“Not really, no,” he replied without hesitation. “A win now is just as important, maybe more important than a win at the end of the season. I’m not saving anything, I’m trying to be the best I can be every night.”
