Colorado Rockies: 3 things we learned from the opening series

The Colorado Rockies season is 1.85 percent over. We now know everything that will happen in the 2018 season with absolute certainty.

Okay, we don’t and we never will and that’s why we all love baseball. Yet there are few things we learned in the first 27 innings of play from the Rockies that are interesting.

Adam Ottavino had two really good outings and looked like his former self, if only briefly. It’s way too early to definitively proclaim the 32-year-old reliever back yet there were some great signs.

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Ottavino’s first two appearances stacked up to six strikeouts in two innings of work. That’s the most possible for those of you new to the game. He did, however, walk one, which is an issue that has ballooned in recent years, apexing last season.

The best news about the righty is that he had these appearances on back-to-back days. In total, his RE24 for the two outings was 1.14. RE24 is a solid state for relievers because, as FanGraphs puts it, “they enter into games and leave games with men on base frequently, so the standard rule book definition of runs allowed doesn’t always capture a reliever’s true performance.” Anyway, Ottavino never had back-to-back days with a positive RE24s that equated a number as high as 1.14 the entire year in 2017.

You do not need a fancy stat to tell you that Ottavino looked good, the eye test works here.

Granted last season he also had an outing in Arizona where he was unhittable. It’s way too early to say if Ottavino is back. But if he is, he might actually be the best reliever in a bullpen that features Wade Davis, Bryan Shaw, Jake McGee and Mike Dunn.

“Otto” just has to keep his walks down.