The National League West is guarded by men with cannons … for arms. Clayton Kershaw, Madison Bumgarner, Johnny Cueto, Rich Hill and more roam the division day and night, giving the Rockies fear that they don’t talk about at parties.
But Charlie Blackmon has neither the time nor the inclination to rise and sleep under the very blanket of that fear without questioning the manner in which those pitchers provide it. He intends to pick up a bat, stand a post, and let the big dogs in the NL West know that they can’t handle the new truth; these Colorado Rockies are for real.
And apparently, that meant waking up the offense. You see, Blackmon and the rest of the platoon have been hitting much better ever since manager Bud Black started throwing regular batting practice for the team. You could say they want Bud Black on that mound, they need Bud Black on that mound.
Much has been written about Black’s influence on this team’s young pitchers and bullpen management, but he still has enough crafty lefty in him to give the Rockies the looks they need to prepare themselves.
This has been especially true, or so it seems, for Blackmon.
“Charlie has a very regimented pre-game routine that he follows religiously,” Black says “And at times I’m a part of that in the cage throwing to him. Even though he’s a creature of habit there are mild variations from day to day and I do really enjoy talking to him.”
It’s no surprise to anyone who has met either man that Black and Blackmon would mesh brilliantly. Skipping past similarities in their family names, both are remarkably cerebral baseball men who could spend countless hour talking and thinking about the game. Black says they hit it off right away: “This goes back to the first time I talked to Charlie on the phone in November. We had a great conversation. Charlie fired me up. Initially, I had a good vibe from Charlie and that was reinforced when we got to spring training. Our daily interaction just on baseball and life and stuff, I like talking to Charlie. There were a number of times in spring training I threw batting practice to his group.”
And Black is back to throwing BP for his guys, getting out there a couple of weeks ago. We need to double check the timeline and ask Blackmon himself about correlation versus causation, but the numbers are startling.
Blackmon got out to a rough start and was hitting just .233 on April 18. But he has been crushing the ball ever since. Over his last week’s worth of games, the Rockies lead-off hitting is batting .448 with three home runs, three doubles, and two triples. He is now tied with Nolan Arenado and Mark Reynolds for team-lead with seven home runs and is tied for second place in MLB with 24 RBI.
It would appear Bud Black ordered the code red. If “code red” means getting the offense back on track, most especially the man with the greatest beard in sports.
We will follow up on whether or not Black’s presence in BP has really been a factor for Blackmon and others in the future. But something has clicked and Charlie Blackmon is back to being one of the best all-around players in the game again.
