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Colorado Rockies Likely To See Two Playoff Clinchers This Week

By Bobby DeMuro

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Sep 23, 2015; Denver, CO, USA; Pittsburgh Pirates celebrate the win over the Colorado Rockies at Coors Field. The Pirates defeated the Rockies 13-7. Mandatory Credit: Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports

Two playoff berths may well be clinched at Coors Field this week — exactly zero of which are to be clinched by the basement-dwelling Colorado Rockies. 

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If you go to a Colorado Rockies game over the next four days, you might see some exciting, meaningful baseball at Coors Field that has playoff implications for October!

Just not for the Rockies themselves, of course. But if you’re a fan of the Pittsburgh Pirates or Los Angeles Dodgers, sure! Especially after the Pirates’ Coors Field clincher, and on the eve of the Dodgers’ likely soon-to-be Mile High champagne party.

On Wednesday night, the Pirates clinched a playoff berth when they blew out Colorado 13-7 and then celebrated at Coors Field. Over the weekend, the Dodgers might clinch their own playoff berth in Denver; going into Thursday, the Dodgers’ magic number was down to five games.

[ Related: Denver native Mark Melancon develops a 9th inning career ]

The combination of the next five Dodgers’ wins and San Francisco Giants’ losses will clinch it for L.A., and considering the Dodgers have one in Arizona and three more in Colorado through Sunday… yep. So in less than a week, we could be looking at two non-Rockies playoff celebrations in Denver. Isn’t baseball fun?

It’s not like all this playoff-clinching and champagne-celebrating at Coors Field is immediate motivation for the Rockies; they didn’t barely lose out on a playoff spot with a late-season heartbreaker, and they (probably) aren’t going to clinch a spot in the postseason next year. So it’s not like this is fuel for the home clubhouse.

But, against all my interest in defining things explicitly through numbers and stats and empirical evidence and such, maybe there is something slightly less cut-and-dry to be gained here. You know, like some kind of osmosis that sinks in to the Rockies’ roster as they watch now probably two teams clinch playoff spots in the visitor’s clubhouse at Coors Field within four days of each other.

[ Related: The case for the Colorado Rockies to retain Walt Weiss ]

I know, that’s (a) too esoteric to be taken as gospel, (b) too variable and/or difficult to define as a cause of future motivation for the Rockies, and (c) just total speculation about what motivates baseball players. So by all means, don’t take me seriously.

But it’s the perfect microcosm of the Colorado Rockies’ 2015 season — their fifth straight of at least 88 losses — as we (fans, writers, players, everybody) limps along acting like they’re not in as bad of a long-term quagmire as they really are.

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