Homecoming Kings

Fifteen years. The champ had not been beaten in fifteen years. To make matters worse, he’d only gotten better as he’d gone along. In addition to fifteen undefeated seasons, he’d won seven straight world titles, and three gold medals to boot. The last time someone had even scored a single POINT against him had been over a decade prior.

And then a Wyoming nobody named Rulon Gardner came and took it all away.

Gardner was a hell of a Greco-Roman wrestler, but had never won so much as an NCAA title, let alone any of the accolades the monolithic Aleksandr Karelin had amassed when they met at the 2000 Olympics. The match was primarily a stalemate, with Gardner scoring that single point that no one had managed on Karelin in over 10 years. Rulon’s defense held, and it was enough to provide a wildly unexpected outcome. Apparently no one had informed Gardner he was simply fodder on the way to a Karelin Koronation.

If there is a monolith in this season’s MLB expectations, it’s the ever-present Los Angeles Dodgers. Nearly every preseason prognosticator’s popular pick to win it all, the Dodgers are stacked from top to bottom. The team is formidable in most every regard, and has a chip or seven on their shoulders over the last few seasons. With that expected ascendancy to the title, the division title was simply a foregone conclusion. This steamroller is very much under way, and with L.A. out of the gates at 4-2, expectations are not wildly off course so far.

But someone forgot to tell the supposed-to-be-cellar-dwelling Colorado Rockies, heading into today’s Home Opener atop the National League West at 4-1, and kicking off division play against the San Diego Padres. While you’re right to take the Rox hot start with a sizable grain of salt, completion of today’s game will have this shortened season already 10% complete. While the 10% title and a five spot will get you a small cup of coffee, for all it’s worth, these Rockies don’t appear to be paper tigers thus far.

One of the major question marks coming into 2020 was how their pitching staff would fare. The starting platoon of German Marquez, Kyle Freeland, Antonio Senzatela, and Jon Gray had all been historically impressive and unimpressive, depending on which part of their career you focused in on. It seemed statistically unlikely the Rockies would thread that needle and get all four at their best. But at least out of the gates, each has had solid-to-impressive starts, not making mistakes that cost their teams games. The single loss of the season thus far came in the season opener, with Marquez pitching a very solid outing in a 1-0 loss that the offense surprisingly couldn’t find the spark to lend a little help.

Since then, offense has decidedly not been an issue for Colorado, having scored 21 runs in the four wins since. Finding their bats so early could also prove to be a boon for the top-heavy Rockies, who are still waiting for a few parts of the lineup to catch fire. When they do, there may be a fireworks show that will make you forget these are the boys of what’s left of summer.

What will end up being most important to the Rockies in keeping up these appearances is the sense of urgency they can bring to this 60-game season. Looking at that 60-game marker in seasons past, Colorado has been within 4 games of .500 in 21 of the 27 previous campaigns, with their best season at 37-23 in 2017, and their worst at 19-41 in their inaugural campaign. The Rockies will need to keep their foot on the gas this season to make this sort of impression lasting.

But for a moment, savor life atop the Division, Rockies faithful. We’re almost a tenth of the way done, and we haven’t even played a home game yet. Are these Rockies the shockers or the world’s shortest season, or will a little more time bring them back to the middle ground we’ve frequently seen? Don’t dismiss the bits of good fortune that have kicked off 2020 Rockies baseball, and get excited about the fact that they’ve yet to have even gotten all the pieces clicking. In this blink-and-you’ll-miss-it baseball season, Colorado is seeing 2020 very clearly. Welcome home, Rockies. Let’s make it a season we’ll all remember.