Colorado Rockies Lessons from the Postseason: Week One

The Colorado Rockies missed the postseason again in 2014. Here are some lessons they can learn from week one of the MLB playoffs.

For the fifth straight year, the Rockies have missed the postseason, and they were among the first out of contention for the fourth year running. Plenty has been written on the likelihood that things will change without a major front-office shakeup, and I think we’re all starting to resign ourselves to the fact that that isn’t coming.

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No less than six teams who failed to make the playoffs announced a manager or general manager dismissal in the final weeks of the season, while Rockies owner Dick Monfort sat on his hands. At least that kept him from wielding the dreaded iPad and emailing all his season ticket holders to tell them just what he thought of them. But the fact remains that everyone who’s worked for the Rockies in recent years still has a job. If this team is going to make anything happen in its current situation with its current roster, it’s going to be up to the players to work a miracle.

Miracles do happen, and it doesn’t hurt to give them a little help sometimes. Forthwith, three things we have learned already from this year’s wild card games and division series that the Rockies ought to take to heart.

1. It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over

You can thank Yogi Berra for that sentiment, but it’s been proven time and again by all manner of players and teams. The Rockies themselves proved it with Jamie Carroll’s walkoff sacrifice fly in the bottom of the 14th on October 1st, 2007. They also proved it on plenty of occasions throughout this season, walking off nine times. To be fair, the necessity for those kinds of wins was created by a God-awful bullpen, but this team showed that they could stay in a game even when it felt like the pitchers were trying every way they could to lose it.

Eight postseason games have been played so far this year, and three of them have ended in extra innings. Last night, Pablo Sandoval hit an RBI double that scored the tying run for the Giants with 2 outs in the top of the 9th. The Giants would go onto win in the 18th inning. It’s this never-say-die attitude that throws San Francisco into the playoff mix every single year, even when it’s unclear what they’ve done to deserve it. The Rockies showed signs that they might be developing this attitude at times this year, but they could use a good deal more of it.

2. Blame No One But Yourself

There have already been plenty of questionable managerial decisions this postseason. It’s a time of year when good managing matters more than any other; see Ron Washington, whose playoff mismanaging has cost the Rangers more than one World Series. Last night, Nationals manager Matt Williams pulled starter Jordan Zimmermann right before Sandoval came up. Zimmermann had surrendered 3 hits and a run over the course of 8 2/3 innings, and he was at 100 pitches.

Presumably, he had enough in the tank to set down Sandoval and end the game. Williams’s decision to put in Drew Storen, who has not pitched well in the playoffs, was extremely costly. It led to a Giants win, and the Nats are now down 0-2 in the series going back to San Francisco. If/when they lose, many will look back at Williams’s choice as the turning point. But in postgame interviews, the Nats pointed the finger directly at themselves (with the exception of Asdrubal Cabrera, who rightly disagreed with home plate umpire Vic Carapazza’s calls).

Another manager already taking flak for bad decisions is the Royals’ Ned Yost, who pulled his starter, James Shields, from the wild card playoff game at only 88 pitches. Shields hadn’t been perfect up to that point, but there’s a reason his nickname is “Big Game James.” His stamina is legendary throughout the league, and he’s capable of finishing what he started more often than most. Yost didn’t trust him to finish it, and Yordano Ventura (another questionable choice) ended up blowing the save.

The Royals, instead of getting angry at a manager who didn’t know what he was doing, just kept grinding out hits and stolen bases, and they won. The lesson in all this is that when circumstances outside your control affect your ability to win the game, you either win it anyway, or you figure out what you personally did wrong that led to the loss. No finger-pointing, no blaming. Just get it done.

3. Don’t Let the Losses Get You Down

The Los Angeles Dodgers were handed by far the most heartbreaking loss of the postseason so far when their ace, Clayton Kershaw, came to pieces on Friday night. The worst thing about it was that Kershaw started out rough, surrendering a home run to the second batter he faced, and then seemed to get it back together. He then pitched four near-perfect innings before giving up another homer. It looked like it would just be a slightly below-average outing for Kershaw when the Cardinals exploded for 8 runs in the 7th inning. The Dodgers couldn’t keep pace, and they lost by one run.

That’s a morale-busting loss for sure. When your ace, the guy who is on most people’s short lists for both Cy Young and MVP, can’t get it done in such an important game, it would be easy to feel the effects for a long time. Not the Dodgers. They took their lumps, dusted themselves off, and went out to become the first team this postseason to even a series at 1-1. Even though they’re headed back to St. Louis for games 3 and 4, it feels like the momentum is on their side. If they don’t win this series, it won’t be because they haven’t given the Cards a hard time.

The Rockies would do well to study these teams and learn from them. Every year when I watch the postseason, I find myself thinking, oh, so THIS is what it’s like to watch people who know how to play baseball! The Rockies do it the right way infrequently enough that I get used to mediocrity and whining throughout the season, and then I realize how far my standards have fallen. We’d all do well to closely observe what the best of the best are doing and raise the bar accordingly.

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