Colorado Rockies: If this is hell, let’s hope it lasts for a long time

Colorado Rockies manager Bud Black started one of the most important road trips of the season by paraphrasing a quote from Winston Churchill, “When you’re going through hell, you know what you do? Keep going. That’s what you’ve got to do. You can’t just sit there.”

The Rockies have done anything but just “sit there” through their first two games at Chavez Ravine, punching the reeling (but still division-leading) Los Angeles Dodgers square in the mouth with a pair of wins. And not just a pair of wins but a pair of victories against Clayton Kershaw and Yu Darvish, two of LA’s most prized and respected pitchers.

If this is hell, Colorado will take it. Maybe the Rockies could build a nice summer home there even. Maybe stay a while.

A team that struggled mightily at times during its recent nine-game homestand now looks like a team to be reckoned with as the scene shifts from the mountains to Southern California. As Black often says in his meetings with the media, “That’s baseball.”

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Colorado’s players have rarely lacked confidence or swagger this season. Talk to any of them in the clubhouse and you’ll see that no matter how bad things might have been at the time in recent games, each of them knew a turning point was coming. Nolan Arenado talked with us recently about sticking to this routine, no matter the ups and downs of the season. Carlos Gonzalez, always willing to talk to the media, stayed consistent in his message, despite a horrific start to his season and plenty of questions about his worth to the team.

Those questions have dissipated quickly as CarGo is looking like CarGo again, hitting .476 in September. The haters have quickly hidden (but social media comments live forever, don’t they?).

Next: Who we think might be on Colorado's postseason roster

Are the Rockies out of the woods yet when it comes to securing their spot in the postseason? No, but they enter Saturday’s game with a different look when their Wild Card lead shrunk to just a half-game. Sure, six tough road games lie ahead in Los Angeles and Arizona against some of the game’s best pitchers, but the confidence that has bubbled under the surface through good and bad times, is showing just when Colorado needs it most.