Colorado Rockies: The 5 Best Storylines So Far This Season

Trevor Story’s Emergence

Story has been one of the key offensive contributors for the Rockies from opening day when he hit two over the fence against Arizona’s $206.5 million man Zack Greinke. We all know what ensued with Story Mania sweeping through Denver and the nation as he continued to hit home runs. But let’s not forget Story entered spring training as a competitor for the starting shortstop job. He dominated in Arizona throughout March and truly earned the starting spot going into Opening Day.

He has obviously fallen off slightly from the start of the year but that is to be expected because otherwise he would have racked up more than 100 home runs. Still, Story rightfully was in the All-Star Game’s Final Vote campaign where he finished third.

The fact that he will not be an All-Star does not take away from the amazing first half he has had. He broke the rookie record for most homers in the first half on Thursday when he hit two bombs against the Phillies, bringing his total to 21 to go along with 57 RBI. He is in top 15 in the MLB for extra base hits and home runs and is second only to Manny Machado at the shortstop position in both of these statistics.

While his strikeout numbers are very high, I think the Rockies will live with that because it is not as though he is going up to the plate swinging for the fences three times and returning to the dugout. His pitches per plate appearance is 4.24, which is well above the league average of 3.86. This shows a level of plate discipline that is rare for a rookie and is even more rare for the Rockies.

The fact that Story is able to provide the stats that he has while also putting together solid at-bats makes him the best Story of the first half. Sorry, I had to get at least one pun in there.

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