Patience required to watch the 2015 Colorado Rockies

Well, it looks like they did it again.

The Colorado Rockies lured everyone back in with a strong start and made people believe that they might be the surprise team in the National League. They were out-slugging teams and getting stellar defense, allowing their pitchers mistakes to be erased. The lineup was impossible to get out and the bullpen was locked in.

Quietly, critics pointed to the issues. The starting pitchers weren’t going deep into games and they were walking far too many batters. With as much negativity as the Rockies have brought upon themselves in recent years, simply seeing them win was enough to ignore the deficiencies and go with the flow.

On Friday night in San Diego, the issues became undeniable. The Rockies dropped an embarrassing game to the Padres, 14-3. It was the third blowout in a row for the Rockies.

The Rockies were sloppy in the field, committing four errors. They were sloppy on the mound, Eddie Butler only made it through four innings after struggling to get ahead of Padre batters all night long.

The problem is, the way the Rockies started was unsustainable. The bullpen simply wasn’t going to be able to pick up four or five innings every night and the lineup wasn’t going to be able to put up six runs in every game.

The way the Rockies have been going, It would seem like a great night if the starter made it through five innings, let alone pitching into the 6th inning. That type of consistency is the worst thing that a team can have. A bullpen is only as good as their roles, and when a manager has to consistently ask guys to pitch at times in the game where they aren’t supposed to, and get more outs than they are good enough to get, it is eventually going to cause trouble.

Baseball is the longest season in all of professional sports. the reality that they play 162 games means that not too much can be read into one game, whether it is a blowout loss or a close win. However, losses like Friday night’s also have the ability to put a tattoo on a team’s season. A loss like the Rockies sustained on Friday can be a back-breaker to a team that started out hot.

The Rockies started the season playing like they believed in themselves. The offseason moves were paying off and the change in mindset that came with the Rockies front office change seemed like it had lifted the dark cloud that was hanging above the Colorado franchise since 2011. Things were looking up for the Rockies. They may have been overachieving, but they believed in themselves. The mental side of baseball is such a huge factor for any team. If the talent is there, and the players believe that they can be good, a team can vastly overachieve.

However, when a team that is overachieving suddenly finds themselves coming back to earth, it is easy to see why them might start wondering if their early season success was a fluke. Maybe they aren’t as good as they thought they were. Maybe they are actually closer to the 90-plus loss team that has taken the field for the past three seasons.

The mark of a good team is one that can bounce back from a terrible stretch of baseball. The Rockies are at that turning point. With a record of 11-11, they can either decide that the team that played so well in the first three weeks of the season was the team that they are, or that the team that can get outs, can’t hit the ball and can’t play in the field is who they actually are.

Make no mistake, every team in Major League Baseball will sustain at least a couple really bad losses like the Rockies suffered on Friday. However, this is a young team with several young pitchers. This team is in the process of figuring out who they are and if they can be successful.

Friday night could be a huge turning point for the Rockies. They can either decide that they are going to focus more, or continue to let things spiral out of control and watch as things fall apart. Great teams sew up their issues shortly after they appear. Bad teams allow things to unravel.

How the Rockies react will tell their fans everything that they need to know about the team that they are rooting for.