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World Series Preview: Kansas City Royals, Rocktober, And The Question Of Momentum

By Hayden Kane|

The 2014 World Series gets underway Tuesday night, with the Kansas City Royals reminding many people of the 2007 Colorado Rockies.

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    • Would the Colorado Rockies have won the 2007 World Series if not for that long layoff after the NLCS? Probably not, but if you buy into the importance of momentum, you might feel that they at least would have had a better chance.

    To be clear, the comparison between the ‘Rocktober’ Rockies and the 2014 Kansas City Royals only goes so far. Yes, both teams entered the postseason as Wild Card teams and went on to win seven straight playoff games. If you count game 163 against the Padres (which is the same as the one-game Wild Card), then the Rockies actually also won eight straight games.

    Like the Royals, the Rockies thrived on defense and the back of their bullpen. Like the Royals, the Rockies were red hot but then had to wait for the start of the World Series. Like the Royals, the Rockies faced many questions about how the layoff would affect them. Like the Royals will, the Rockies faced a team that had been there before.

    To me, it is the quality of an experienced opponent that matters more than the layoff.

    For the Rockies, that established opponent was the Boston Red Sox. For the Royals, that opponent is the San Francisco Giants.

    The Royals have a team full of guys who have never been in this spot before. The 2007 Rockies were similar, and it simply felt like the moment got away from them from time to time. That is what the Royals have to avoid, especially against an opportunistic team like the Giants. They must avoid the killer mistakes, especially the kinds that can chalked up to inexperience.

    You remember Matt Holliday getting picked off first base…

    To me, it is the quality of an experienced opponent that matters more than the layoff.

    Lastly, like the Royals, the Rockies saw their 2007 as the start of great things for many years to come. They saw it as the jumping off point for sustained contention.

    The Rockies were dead wrong, and that’s why it can be hard to see their sweep in the World Series as anything other than getting exposed. By getting drubbed by the Red Sox in the World Series, the Rockies proved that their magical winning streak was fluky. That is not to say that they were a bad baseball team. They were a pretty good, but definitely flawed baseball team that got really hot, and then reality caught up with them.

    I have always believed that reality would have caught up with the 2007 Rockies whether they played the World Series the next day or 10 days later. I do understand the argument that momentum played a part, however, and it will be interesting to see how it applies to these Royals.

    The World Series starts Tuesday night at 6:07 P.M. Mountain Time.

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