If the season ended today, the Colorado Rockies would have locked up their first postseason birth since 2009.
Wow, that’s a long time ago. Eight years to be exact.
Sitting at 72-61, the Rockies currently hold the key to the second Wild Card spot, holding off the surging Milwaukee Brewers by just three games.
However, Colorado isn’t exactly doing itself any favors, posting a record of 8-14 in their last 22 games. During that span, the Rockies — as an offense — have managed to put up just 90 runs. For those of you mathematicians, that’s roughly 4.09 runs per game and that includes one game of 17 runs. Not to mention, out of those 22 games, the Rockies managed to score more than three runs in just eight of them.
That’s not winning baseball.
The club has 29 games remaining in the 2017 campaign, 26 of which are against NL West foes.
Games Remaining (not in order):
D’Backs: 7
Dodgers: 7
Marlins: 3
Giants: 5
Padres: 7
The Rockies kick off their eventful September schedule on Sept. 1 with the Diamondbacks, who currently hold the first Wild Card spot by three games over the Rockies. Fortunately for the Rockies, the team won’t have to face Zack Greinke in the three-game set. Greinke is starting the series finale against the Los Angeles Dodgers Thursday afternoon.
Also, the Rockies will trot out Rookie of the Year candidate Kyle Freeland in game one, while Jon Gray will get the ball for the second game.
A sweep (clearly what Colorado is hoping for) of the D’Backs would result in a tie atop the Wild Card spot. Tiebreaker going to Colorado.
Good news for the Rockies is that they’ve faired pretty well against the National League West this season.
Colorado is a combined 29-21 against the NL West.
D’Backs: 6-6
Dodgers: 5-7
Giants: 10-4
Padres: 8-4
One player that needs to get back on track for Colorado is third baseman Nolan Arenado. He’s in what you would call a “mini slump” right now.
Arenado, in the month of August, posted a line of .265/.348/.547 with six doubles, one triple, seven home runs, and 20 RBI in 102 at-bats. The production is there but the OPS is not. With the way Colorado’s offense has been of late, they are going to rely heavily up No. 28 as the month goes on. A good final month for Arenado could easily mean a good final month for Colorado which could lead to the first postseason berth in eight years.
Failure to make the postseason won’t render the 2017 season a disaster, though it would be incredibly disappointing after everything that has unfolded. But a strong finish with this group, and even seeing just one game of postseason play, could be huge for the franchise moving forward as they claw their way back into relevance.
The ride throughout September may be smooth or it may be bumpy — or maybe a little bit of both. At the end of the day, win or lose, it’s nice for Rockies fans to have meaningful games back this late in the year.
