MILWAUKEE – The Colorado Rockies were very nearly completely dominated in the first game of the NLDS by the Milwaukee Brewers.
They managed just one hit over eight innings while the Brew Crew ran out flamethrower after flamethrower in an impressive display of the quality of their own bullpen?
But in a best-of-five series, did they play their cards too soon and fly too close to the sun?
While still stewing in the frustration of the 3-2 loss in extra innings, the Rockies clubhouse was surprisingly upbeat afterward with multiple players going to that old truism to remind us that nobody was going to “hang their heads.” Charlie Blackmon channeled Douglass Adams: “Don’t Panic.”
But this isn’t a story about a moral victory or a mental win on behalf of a team that looked down and ought but still fought with all their hearts. That’s nice, and still to some degree true, but baseball games between two teams of this caliber tend to be won on talent, scouting, approach, strategy, and timing.
By using so many relievers in the first contest, the Brewers may have just given the Rockies the roadmap on how to beat them in the next four.
To a man, Blackmon, Nolan Arenado, and Trevor Story all admitted that seeing a different pitcher in each at-bat caused them a bit of trouble. But each man also insisted that they now have a chance to turn that decision into a major advantage for their offense.
I asked Story if the Rockies might be able to take more confidence against this bullpen moving forward.
“Yeah, I think so. It’s tough, they have a really good bullpen. But like you said, we’ve seen them. We’ve seen them before too but the more recently you’ve seen guys you get that refresher and can make a plan of attack,” Story said.
Blackmon concurred, going a bit further.
“It makes it difficult when you see a different guy every inning but it’s risky on their part. I feel like a lot of times those late-inning guys can rely on not being seen that often and guys don’t have a whole lot of time to make adjustments because they may only face them two or three times a year,” he said. “We should get to face them two or three times in a series, so that should help the offense.”
Arenado was in lock-step.
“I think it’s a good thing. Especially going into tomorrow. You feel more comfortable the more you face someone, that’s just how that goes. We saw them, we know what they have. It’s plus stuff, it’s good stuff, but we’ll be ready for it,” Arenado said.
It’s tempting to throw Game 1 into the category of “Rockies offensive woes” and there is absolutely some legitimacy to that; some swings need to be tightened up and some patience must be instilled. But there is also no arguing that this is an offense that always performs better the more information they have.
This is the first time these Rockies have been in a position like this. The strategy that must be employed when you will see a team up to five times in a row has to be a bit different than it is over the 162 games season which can be a phenomenally difficult adjustment to make.
Furthermore, Cory Knebel, Josh Hader, Jeremy Jeffress and the rest aren’t going to get magically worse anytime soon. But there is no way around the fact that the Brewers showed the Rockies a lot in the first game. And they almost had it bite them right away as they could have run out of pitchers had the game gone much longer.
It’s up to Colorado to use the information they now have and make them pay for it.
