Colorado Rockies: If you don’t have something nice to say … speak up?

DENVER – The Colorado Rockies are under .500. They have lost seven straight home games and 11 of their last 14 games within the National League West.

None of that is good.

It is no longer early in the Major League Baseball season. The Rockies are toying with two words which have plagued their franchise for as long as it has existed: June, Swoon.

They came into a weekend set with Arizona vying for first place. They left in fourth after being swept.

The Rockies are in trouble. They know it too.

"“This is where we are right now,” Ian Desmond said. “This is where this team is right now. We’ve got to look ourselves in the mirror. Sometimes losing helps you do that.”"

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Losing is pretty much all the Rockies are doing … at least at home. The club now sits at 11-19 in Coors Field contests, a mark that’s completely unacceptable and telling of a team that believes they’re playoff-bound.

"“I keep saying it, this is the the time of year you want to struggle,” Chris Iannetta said. “You don’t want to struggle, but it’s better to battle through it now and click in the second half.”"

The opposite happened last year when the Rockies got off to a 47-26 start before finishing 87-75.

While hanging around .500 and having a good or even a few good months late could be a recipe to dance, being under .500 in the same month that the team was 21 games above .500 just a season ago —to barely make the playoffs, mind you — is not good.

"“I’ve been on teams where you look back and a coach or somebody will come up to you and say, ‘Last year at this time, da-da-da-da-da,'” Desmond said. “I don’t really like to look at it that way.“There’s no doubt we’re underperforming. Every man in here is. As a group we are underperforming. I guess to say we’re at .500 and underperforming that’s decent but it’s time to get going. But I’m as much to blame as anyone. It’s time for me to get going too.”"

One can blame Desmond (he kinda blamed himself anyhow), the bullpen (many have), or the offense as a whole … but those are kind of easy cop outs.

Is it hard to play around your $22 million first baseman being statistically one of the worst players in Major League Baseball? Heck yeah. Is it hard to play around your $7.5 million setup man who has almost allowed a run for every inning he’s pitched? You bet. Is it hard to play around your entire outfield accounting for a -2.0 rWAR? Extremely.

But for all three to be happening at once, that’s insanity. A completely impossible way to be successful. It also lends credence to the theory that it might just be a miracle that this team is .500ish right now.

That is either a horrible or great sign and nothing between.

One thing is clear, and it’s what is at the heart of the real problem facing the Fightin’ Rox. The team can not find any consistency or click.

"“That’s kind of what happens in a baseball season. If you look at it in short spurts, sometimes it’s disjoined,” Iannetta said. “We need to try to get the peaks to matchup.”“It’s not just pitching,” Desmond said. “It’s offense, too. The objective is to score more runs than the other team. When we weren’t scoring runs, they were holding teams to less runs than we had. It’s our job to score more runs to help them out, to pick them up.”"

When the staff has been good the offense has not, when the offense has been good the staff has not and when the bullpen has been good, actually that hasn’t happened … yet, outside of Adam Ottavino.

"“Pitching is paramount to winning,” Bud Black said. “And these last 10 games or so, we haven’t pitched well as a group. The 13-man pitching staff has not pitched well enough to beat the other team. And this series (Arizona,) they outpitched us and outhit us.”"

There a traffic cones, red flags and whatever else you want to call it on the Rockies roster right now. There is room for change and probably some change that needs to occur if this club is going to goto the postseason.

There is one no-spin positive about this all, and it’s not reflection like Desmond had mentioned. It’s that the players are cognizant of an inherent issue at hand and still have an inner belief that they’re going to be okay.

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Maybe the players are wrong and they should not have that belief. That’s for time, not us, to decide.

"“Time to see where we are at. Time to see what we’re made of,” Desmond said."

DENVER – The Colorado Rockies are under .500. They have lost seven straight home games and 11 of their last 14 games within the National League West.

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