LINCICOME: It's a 'Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah' daze for Rockies

By Bernie Lincicome, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Thursday, May 8, 2008

The Rockies are free from worry. They have earned a pass. Getting to the World Series will do that.

Had they lost any one of those September games, if they had not had that marvelous, one-for-the-ages finish last year, had they not, however briefly, tasted the Fall Classic, this spring would be altogether different.

How tiny the margin for patience, not even asked for but assumed.

Clint Hurdle's job would be under discussion, Dan O'Dowd would be without argument the dolt of a general manager he was before he became last fall's genius, Todd Helton the hot rumor to go somewhere, the poor pitching staff the usual bunch of ill-fitted donors and the weak-hitting lineup typical.

We have seen this all before, and over and over, but without the streamers and music still lingering in our eyes and ringing in our ears.

That makes what is happening now much more forgivable and even predictable, for the Rockies rose so high, so suddenly, the only direction left was back down.

The shelf life of glory is longer for those to whom it comes so seldom, and this is probably going to linger another five seasons or so, or at least until Helton actually leaves.

When one wonders what is wrong and how it can be fixed, there is no real cruelty or malice behind it. There is no hurry, either, for the smiles are too fresh.

The Rockies are not the Yankees or even the Red Sox, teams on whom demands weigh perpetually. They are not the Cardinals, or the Braves, teams of long tradition and expectation, or even the Cubs, where any loud heartbeat is taken for thunder.

Even with a modest little two-game winning streak now, and a home split with St. Louis, the Rockies lurk among the remains of baseball, worse than Tampa Bay, always the dependable footstool, no matter how bad the Rockies.

This is familiar territory, and of small concern, for anytime despair is there, the scoreboard can show Matt Holliday's face-first slide or Helton being hugged or the whoops and yelps of a drenched clubhouse.

The National League pennant flaps proudly in the thin air and will until some other team wins it.

If Aaron Cook is the only dependable pitcher, that is where we were before, and Jeff Francis will come around or he won't. Ubaldo Jimenez and Franklin Morales are pitching as young pitchers do, as they oddly did not do last year.

And to see Brian Fuentes closing again, well, you remember he blew four saves to lose his job to Manny Corpas and Corpas only blew two to give it back. Maybe the next change will come at three.

If in early May there is no rotation set, well, when was it ever? And so impulsive a remedy as trying to get back pitchers Josh Fogg or Julian Tavarez tend to be just the sort of straws usually grasped at.

The fact is the pitching is its usual bit of mediocrity, ranking in the middle of the league in most categories, while the batting is the real rascal.

Here's the solace in that. The pitching should not get worse, but the hitting is surely going to get better.

The argument over whether what the Rockies did last fall was a fluke or not is too silly to bother with. It makes no difference.

If no one takes the Rockies seriously, so much the better for the Rockies. That is exactly how they beat the house when it mattered most.

If the Rockies take themselves too seriously, and maybe they are a little bit, the long season will take care of that.

The Rockies did exactly what they had to do, which was to give this group, the ones who did the impossible, a chance to do it again. They re-signed whom they needed to, stuck with whom they knew, expected it to work with no reason to expect it wouldn't.

And it still might. Even though the Rockies are further behind already than they were last season, and considering that Arizona up at the head of the division may be the best team in baseball, there are weeks and months and a stretch drive to go.

A single week can turn everything upside down. The Rockies could be at .500 and the Diamondbacks only three games up by next Thursday.

And with 120 games to play. Panic? Hah.