Tough act to follow for Rockies
History isn't on Rockies' side, but that was true in '07
By Tracy Ringolsby, Rocky Mountain News
Originally published 09:35 p.m., March 30, 2008
Updated 10:56 a.m., March 31, 2008
Photo by Chris Schneider
The Opening Day 2008 logo at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Mo., on Sunday. The Rox play the St. Louis Cardinals today to open the 2008 season.
Photo by Chris Schneider
Aaron Cook, left and Luis Vizcaino, right, throw in the bullpen during the Colorado Rockies workout at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Mo., on Sunday. The Rox open defense of their National League crown today.
Chris Schneider © The Rocky
Matt Holliday, right, laughs with Troy Tulowitzki, left, and Garrett Atkins during the Rockies’ workout Sunday at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. Colorado is slated to open the season at 2:15 p.m. today against the Cardinals, although rain is in the forecast for St. Louis.
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The odds are against the Rockies returning to the World Series.
So what's new?
This group of Rockies players has made a name for itself by making what seemed impossible possible.
"This group has a unique ability to focus and have fun," manager Clint Hurdle said. "These guys show up, play the game hard, play the game right and have a blast."
So far, so good.
The Rockies caught the rest of the baseball world by surprise last year. A team that had suffered eight losing seasons in nine years and finished in last or next- to-last place 11 years in a row, won the first National League pennant in franchise history.
And did it in style.
They became only the sixth team to fall nine games below .500 during a season (18-27) and advance to the World Series. And they put on the strongest season-ending kick in history, winning 14 of their final 15 regular-season games, including a tiebreaker against San Diego, to claim the NL wild card.
And that, Hurdle is convinced, will be something that helps the Rockies of 2008 move forward.
"That is what history is for," Hurdle said. "We have been in areas we haven't been in before and we handled them well. We know we are capable of dealing with the challenge."
Even with a franchise-record 90 wins during the 2007 regular season and sweeps of Philadelphia in the NL Division Series and of NL West champion Arizona in the NL Championship Series, before being swept by Boston in the World Series, the Rockies aren't getting much love this season.
Oddsmakers have them ranked third in the NL West, behind Arizona and Los Angeles and, in some instances, also behind San Diego.
"That's fine," first baseman Todd Helton said. "We have knowledge that we can do it. We know what it takes to get to the World Series. And we still have a motivation to take that next step (and win the World Series)."
It might even be a carry-over from the postseason awards, of which the Rockies failed to win the major ones, including Most Valuable Player, Rookie of the Year and Manager of the Year.
It didn't really faze anyone on the team, though, including shortstop Troy Tulowitzki, who finished second to Milwaukee's Ryan Braun in the rookie voting.
"Any other year, I would have had a good chance to win, but Braun was so good, it was tough," Tulowitzki said. "I wouldn't trade what we did for that, though. I'd rather be in the World Series. This isn't about me or anyone else. It's about playing hard and winning games."
The Rockies became the 31st team in major league history to rally from a losing record one season to get to the World Series the next.
And for an encore . . .
Only four teams made it back to the World Series a second year in a row, three of them losing (Atlanta in 1992, the Dodgers in 1966 and Washington in 1925) and one winning (Detroit in 1935).
Twenty-three of the previous 30 teams did follow their World Series appearances with winning records, but the seven losers have been among the last 11 teams that have made the jump from a losing record to the World Series. That includes three of the five teams that have done that since the three rounds of postseason play began in 1995.
The Florida Marlins, though, don't really count. While they went from 80-82 in 1996 to beating the Indians in the 1997 World Series to losing 108 games in 1998, it should be pointed out that before the championship parade ended in October 1997, owner H. Wayne Huizenga ordered a complete payroll purge.
Among the starting lineup, starting rotation and closer, the only holdovers from 1997 to 1998 were shortstop Edgar Renteria and right-handed pitcher Livan Hernandez.
The Rockies made only minimal alterations. Twenty of the 25 players on their Opening Day roster from last year return. Rookie second baseman Jayson Nix is the only new face in the starting lineup.
Could it be these Rockies are more like the Atlanta Braves, who, after four consecutive seasons of more than 90 losses, began a professional sports-record streak of 14 consecutive division titles?
"I don't see any of that affecting this team," Hurdle said. "We work to live up to our own expectations, and we have big expectations of ourselves. There's still something we have to go get. Last year whetted the appetite."
And there is a confidence in this team born out of the way it did battle back last year. Not only was it 18-27 on May 21, but it finished June and into July with a 1-9 trip through Toronto, Chicago and Houston in which then-closer Brian Fuentes was charged with a record four consecutive blown saves.
After that, though, the Rockies began to build toward their late-season surge.
"When things don't go our way, we shouldn't lose confidence," outfielder Matt Holliday said. "We need to maintain the momentum of last year to get through adversity. We are going to have trials again. That's part of the game. We have to hang together. That's probably our biggest challenge."
This, though, is a team that is together. Not only are there only five new faces from a year ago, but 15 of the 25 players on the Opening Day roster have spent their entire careers in the Rockies organization.
They all have spent time at the minor league complex in Tucson, as well as the major league spring training facility. And they have made the stops along the way in a farm system that begins with a rookie team in Casper and ends at Triple-A Colorado Springs, with trips in between at short-season Tri-City, Low Single-A Asheville, High-A Modesto and Double-A Tulsa.
"We know each other and we always had a feeling that we believed in ourselves as a team," left-hander Jeff Francis said. "We'd watch guys develop and knew we had a lot of good players. And we knew we were even better as a team because of the way we fit together."
The Rockies proved their point last year.
The challenge this year is proving it wasn't a fluke.
Battling back
The Rockies last year became the sixth team in history to fall at least nine games below .500 during a season and rally to appear in the World Series.
Year Team Low point
2007 Rockies 18-27
2005 Astros 16-31
2003 Marlins 19-29
1973 Mets 52-65
1951 Giants 2-12
1914 Braves 12-28
2008 Predictions from baseball writers Tracy Ringolsby and Jack Etkin
Team winners . . . Tracy Ringolsby . . . Jack Etkin
National League wild card . . . San Diego . . . Philadelphia
American League wild card . . . Seattle . . . Detroit
NL Championship Series . . . Colorado over San Diego . . . Atlanta over Colorado
AL Championship Series . . . Los Angels over Boston . . . Cleveland over Boston
World Series . . . Colorado over Los Angeles Angels . . . Cleveland over Atlanta
Individual awards
AL Most Valuable Player . . . Torii Hunter, Angels . . . Manny Ramirez, Red Sox
NL Most Valuable Player . . . Troy Tulowitzki, Rockies . . . Mark Teixeira, Braves
AL Cy Young Award . . . Josh Beckett, Red Sox . . . Roy Halladay, Blue Jays
NL Cy Young Award . . . Jake Peavy, Padres . . . Johan Santana, Mets
Comments
Posted by bobba on March 31, 2008 at 4:23 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Tracy,
You proved yourself a homer and/or baseball hack.
Predicting the Rockies to win the NL West AND the WS???
Tulow as NL MVP?
Those aren't predictions.
They're dreams.
And you can't compare the Braves to the Rockies. At the core of that Braves streak were a trio of likely HOF pitchers: Maddux, Glavine and Schmoltz who racked up 7 Cy Young Awards during the streak. Prepared to predict the HOF for three of your current Rockies, much less three of the pitchers? And the Braves managed to win 2 of the 8 MVPs Barry Bonds didn't win during that streak. C'mon... tell me you were drinking heavily when you wrote that comparison?
And can you honestly see the starting pitching holding up this season? Francis seems like a good bet to win 15 or more again. But after that? Morales and Jimenez WILL struggle. Heck, they are already struggling. Redman? Just hope he makes it out of the third inning more than 2/3 of the time. Francis? Who knows... maybe double digit wins... maybe another stint on the DL?
Can Tulow continue to progress as a hitter or will he become a Coors Firld wonder? Can Hawpe hit lefties? Is Taveras really a bona fide lead-off hitter? Will they miss Matsui at 2nd? Will Helton continue to suspend the regression of his power numbers?
There's plenty of questions out there. More than you could possibly account for in another run to the World Series.
UNLESS, you care to predict another historic winning streak?
I didn't think so...
you shameless homer.
Way to sell-out to the bandwagon jumpers.
Posted by TracyRingolsby on April 1, 2008 at 10:07 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I didn't say they would be like the Braves, I just asked if they could, becuase like the Braves they took a long-term building approach to create a home-grown body.
As for selling out to the bandwagon jumpers, I'd question that in that a year ago I predicted a second place finish for the Rockies.
A shameless homer? If that's what you think, that's fine, but I would say it is more maintaining a belief I have had for the last five years that the long-range approach the Rockies took was the way to create a successful franchise.
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