Friday On The Rox: Strange Occurrences

“Friday On The Rox” is BSN Denver’s weekly highlights from baseball, and other stuff! It’s our favorite links, articles, gifs, Vines, stories, pictures, tweets, or really anything that we like that we saw in the world from the week. Of course, we’ll make it Rockies-centric.

This past Saturday South Carolina’s home football game against LSU was moved to Baton Rouge due to the floods in South Carolina. So LSU had an away game in their home stadium. This got me thinking, have the Rockies ever played at a neutral site, or under strange circumstances? Of course you’ll probably remember Carlos Zambrano threw his no-hitter against the Astros in Milwaukee after Hurricane Ike rocked Houston.

Or you’ll remember when MLB moved some of the Montreal Expos home games to San Juan, Puerto Rico in 2003, and 2004.

The Rockies opened the 1999 season in Monterrey, Mexico against the San Diego Padres. This marked the the first time MLB opened the season outside U.S. or Canada. The Rockies led by manager Jim Leyland, won that game 8-2. That was the only time the Rockies have played a regular season neutral site game.

Although South Carolina wore their road jerseys for their home game on the road, it reminded me of another strange Rockies thing. The time the Rockies wore their road jerseys at home. It was for the Rockies 20th anniversary celebration, and they wore their greys at home against the Mets in April of 2013.

A strange baseball thing that’s happening right now is that every single team in the league championship series wears the color royal blue. A cool factoid is that there has never been a World Series played between two expansion teams. That would happen for the first time ever if the Mets are able to beat the Cubs. The NLCS starts tomorrow, and the Cubs look to make it to the World Series for the first time since 1945, of course maybe their best club of the past 50 years was the 1969 club which had its dreams crushed by the Miracle Mets. While on the AL side the Blue Jays are the most recent champions out of the teams remaining, winning last in 1993. They won that series on Joe Carter‘s home run, which might only be topped in Jays’ history by Jose Bautista‘s home run Wednesday night. The ALCS gets underway tonight.

Game five of the ALDS between Texas and Toronto was absolutely unreal, as I’m sure you’ve heard by now. The ups and downs of that game were something else.

Source: FanGraphs

Links:

Grantland /  Ben Lindbergh // 53 Minutes of Madness in Toronto: An Oral History of the ALDS Inning That Broke Baseball

One of my favorites Ben Linbergh breaks down that awesome game five, specially a seventh inning that “broke baseball.”

SB Nation / Grant Brisbee // Every reason why Blue Jays-Rangers Game 5 was one of the best, weirdest games ever

Another great writer, Grant Brisbee talks about that same game from his perspective.

Purple Row/ Bryan Kilpatrick // Colorado Rockies fail to make many positive strides in first year under Jeff Bridich

“In our season preview, we wrote five definitive things that would’ve absolutely had to happen for the Rockies to contend,” BK writes. “Here are those keys, and in between each of those, what actually happened.”

Purple Row/ Ryan Freemyer // The Colorado Rockies’ 10 most influential (in a good way) pitching performances of 2015

“One of my favorite things about baseball is that, over a 162-game season, even the worst teams will have good moments, and even the best teams will have bad moments,” says Freemyer. In his post, he reviews the good moments from the Rockies staff in 2015.

Minor League Ball/ Quinn Barry // Colorado Rockies prospect Ryan McMahon: Future All Star?

One of the prospects I am very high on that’s in the Rockies system is former Mater Dei standout and third base prospect Ryan McMahon. In this post Barry starts by saying, “there was at least one player in their system that took a huge step forward and offers tantalizing hope for a more successful future in Denver. Ryan McMahon, a hot 20-year-old third base prospect coming off a monster season in Single-A, is worth a closer look as his potential approaches stardom.”

Notes: 

On Wednesday BSN Denver had the news of the Rockies making several roster moves, yesterday we found out that catcher Michael McKenry, as expected, has elected free agency.

One of the Rockies’ top pitching prospects Kyle Freeland made his first start for the Salt River Rafters of the Arizona Fall League Wednesday. He was rocked, allowing six earned runs on five hits, two home runs, and two walks in two-thirds of an inning.

Tweets & Media:

#Rockies pic.twitter.com/2AJrPxbihq

— Jake Shapiro, but festive 🎁 (@Shapalicious) October 14, 2015

Grateful for 2 seasons back with the team who got this baseball journey started. All the best to my teammates & Rockies fans! #freeagent

— Michael McKenry (@theFortMcKenry) October 15, 2015

This is mesmerizing pic.twitter.com/S2nHf82Lxm

— CJ Fogler account may or may not be notable (@cjzero) October 16, 2015

https://twitter.com/rockiesVSconnor/status/654872541174112256

Neil Armstrong: that's one small step for…: *is nailed in the ribs by a fastball*
Buzz Aldrin: act like you've been here before.

— DoubleJokerSince23 (@FanSince09) October 15, 2015

https://twitter.com/davelozo/status/654482904635056128

https://twitter.com/TomFornelli/status/654512549002543105

https://twitter.com/GideonTurk/status/653676483395866624

15 minutes into Netflix and chill and he gives you this look pic.twitter.com/5oLDyFcfMF

— jesse spector (@jessespector) October 13, 2015

https://twitter.com/jonahkeri/status/654443050823905281

https://twitter.com/davelozo/status/654504452288856064

pic.twitter.com/ziG3tkQvH3

— Sean Gentille (@seangentille) October 14, 2015

Jay Z's Guide to Last Minute Halloween Costumes:
-Sasquatch
-Godzilla
-King Kong
-Loch Ness
-Goblin
-Ghoul
-A zombie with no conscience

— L.A.S. (@SartoriallyInc) October 13, 2015

Music for the weekend: This reference is a deep one but I’m going for it anyways. Blue Jackets goalie Sergei Bobrovsky said this week, “I have zero confidence right now. It’s a tough time.” This song, which is about “Bob” is awesome. I hope your weekend is awesome, make sure to follow our new twitter account (@BSNRockies) or me (@Shapalicious), also make sure to follow my coverage of the Colorado Buffaloes’ game this weekend on BSNBuffs.com. Have a good one friends!