How Bad Was Monday’s Loss To The Astros?

The 2013 Colorado Rockies are weird.

The only Astro you’ve heard of. Image: Thomas Campbell-USA TODAY Sports

To elaborate, they are weird to follow and to talk about because the stink of 2012 lingers. Things started tail-spinning and went from bad to worse to worst so quickly that we are always looking for that moment when things will fall apart one season later. With each bad loss I wonder if that will be the moment when the Rockies will fall apart and be exposed as the mediocre team we all suspected them to be. It happened when they got swept in San Francisco back in April. It happened when the St. Louis Cardinals put the Rockies’ lineup on complete lock-down. Recently it happened when they blew two big leads against those same San Francisco Giants. Each time I asked: will this be the loss that pushes them off the cliff?

That is the same lingering question after their 3-2 loss against the Astros on Monday in which they stranded 15 runners. To this date the Rockies look like a good baseball team, but for my part I just won’t let myself totally buy into it. When your team has a season like 2012 or has been prone to huge meltdowns in the past (see 2010), things always feel so fickle. So when the Rockies squander a fabulous start by their ace and score only 2 runs against arguably the worst team in baseball, my shields go up once again. I ask myself: just how bad was Monday’s loss? Will this be the one that starts the downward spiral?

Will it be possible for 2013’s bad losses to stand on their own and not carry any deeper implications? Of course it is possible, and to date the Rockies have weathered each storm and made that the case. Even still, I will believe it when I see it happen over a longer period of time. Such is the baggage of previous seasons. For now I will wait and see how the next week or so goes before I try and decide how bad yesterday’s bad loss was in the big scheme of things.