KRIEGER: Inexperience has its cost for Rockies

By Dave Krieger, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Saturday, September 29, 2007

The kid Rocks that stayed for the postmortem insisted it didn't affect them. The packed house, the playoff atmosphere, the biggest game any of them had played in a Colorado uniform.

It's possible, I guess. Psychoanalysis from the press box is worth less than it costs, which in this case is 75 cents.

Still, there were Rocks at-bats Friday night that did not resemble the confident plate appearances of their magic September carpet ride:

• Troy Tulowitzki striking out on a pitch in his eyes, looking for all the world like he was trying to hit the ball to Montana.

"Chased a pitch I probably shouldn't have swung at, but he was tough," Tulowitzki said of Diamondbacks ace Brandon Webb.

• Todd Helton coming up with Matt Holliday in scoring position in the eighth, one out, and rolling the ball to the pitcher on a first-pitch check swing.

• Yorvit Torrealba sacrificing a runner to third with one out in the seventh, down two runs, and Cory Sullivan striking out when all he needed to do was put the ball in play.

The fact is the Rocks have not been here before and experience matters in baseball's big games. As an organization, the Diamondbacks have played many more big games than the Rocks.

For two weeks, the Rocks pursued the impossible. When it suddenly became possible, they woke rather abruptly from the dream.

"Experience is big in everything you do," right fielder Brad Hawpe said. "So if this part of the experience helps us grow, each person individually and as a team, then that's good. That's what we need."

Tulowitzki, the determined rookie, insisted he approached it like any other game, but the disappointment in his face suggested the opposite.

"Obviously, it's very tough to take when you run off 11 in a row and you still find yourself behind some people," he said. "You'd think you'd be on top of either the wild card or the West, but unfortunately, we weren't. The other teams did a good job of winning games when they needed to."

Starter Jeff Francis, trying to match up with Webb ace for ace, admitted struggling to command most of his pitches. He tried to get by changing speeds, but after a third-inning mistake to Diamondbacks first baseman Conor Jackson landed in the left field grandstand, the visitors had all the runs they would need.

"I had opportunities to keep the run total low, and they got a couple of two-out hits on me," he said. "We had opportunities to score on the other end, too. I'm sure everybody here is sharing the same feeling I am."

For the last two-thirds of the season, the Rocks have been the best team in the National League. Unfortunately, for the first third, they were one of the worst, and even their closing rush was not enough to climb out of that hole.

With the Brewers eliminated from the playoff chase Friday night, the chances are remote that they will manage to beat the Padres twice in a row now, which is what the Rocks need to have even a chance at the wild card.

That's one lesson from this turnaround season: You can't throw away April and much of May and not pay for it. Well, unless you play in the Central Division, where the general mediocrity makes anything possible.

For all the satisfaction of the big leagues' longest winning streak of the year, the bid for immediate glory felt a little premature.

Just a year ago, the Rocks were a sub-.500 team. They improved dramatically this year, earning the best record in franchise history, but baseball is not like basketball or hockey. Sixteen teams do not make the playoffs. You can't get in as an eighth seed by achieving mediocrity (unless . . . well, you know).

Like it or not, there are certain rites of passage along the way, and learning to win games like Friday night's is one of them.

"The atmosphere, it felt like the whole city was behind us and rooting with us," outfielder Ryan Spilborghs said of the sellout crowd.

"We tried our best and they beat us, but it was nice to see everybody coming out and enjoying baseball. That's the way it should be."

And if the organization manages it right, it could be that way for a while.

"Offensively, this team reminds me a lot of our teams in the late '80s, early '90s, with the Oakland A's," said Carney Lansford, the hitting coach at Triple-A Colorado Springs who joined the Rocks when the Sky Sox's season ended. "A lot of power hitters. A lot of real good hitters, period. There's really no weakness up and down the lineup."

With a new generation of Blake Street Bombers and some young power arms getting their first taste of the big leagues, they should have more opportunities in big games as the kid Rocks grow to baseball adulthood.

They have to learn how to win big games. That experience is not painless. But it's the only way to get there.

kriegerd@RockyMountainNews.com