Colorado Rockies need to get it together on the base paths

The Colorado Rockies stand at 4-1 after taking the opening series in Milwaukee and winning the home opener behind Kyle Freeland‘s inspiring MLB debut. They’ve gotten a couple of inspiring starting pitching performances and a few that leave room for improvement. The bullpen, a source of much pain and misery a season ago, has been pretty stellar so far. The defense, to the surprise of no one who has been paying attention, has been equally fantastic.

The top dogs in the lineup haven’t been especially great — apart from Nolan Arenado being his usual clutch self — but almost no one expects that to continue and the bottom half of the lineup, especially Gerardo Parra, Mark Reynolds, and Dustin Garneau have gotten the job done. Again, at least enough to hold up for the bullpen to slam the door.

At an early, small sample size stage of the season, I am no more concerned that Trevor Story will continue to strike out at a 45 percent rate than I am that Garneau will hit .500 all season. It’s just too early for any kind of statistics, metric or traditional, to hold any weight. But there is one concerning trend. The base running has been stupendously awful.

Small sample size qualifiers still apply, but the Rockies have quite simply looked lost on the bases. Just yesterday, Charlie Blackmon, usually a phenomenal base runner — cost the Rockies three outs on the bases, though two of those were because of the “Chase Utley Rule” which doesn’t make any sense.

Either way, the caught stealings and unnecessary outs are piling up, and it wouldn’t be that hard to argue that it cost the Rockies at least three runs yesterday. They still got the win, but remember that stellar bullpen we were talking about before? They could use a break, and a little run support could go a long way.

The Rockies can still run. And they should. They have the personnel to do so, especially once Ian Desmond and David Dahl return. But in the first inning? At Coors Field? Maybe pump the breaks a bit.

We expected the Rockies to run. Especially with new first-base coach Tony Diaz who was fantastic at coaching his young players into swiping bags and taking the extra base in Grand Junction. And we expect it to continue. But it’s gotta be a smarter kind of running, in smarter spots. With the aforementioned players out, as well as Tom Murphy, the Rockies can’t afford to keep counting on the bottom of the lineup to win them games. They must take advantage of every base runner they get.

In fact, it’s hard in baseball to count on the offense in general as it tends to be the most volatile aspect of any team. As Bud Black pointed out to us when discussing his bunting strategy, “you only get 27 outs.” And the Rockies need to use theirs more wisely.