Colorado Rockies fans, here’s why you should take a breath and relax

ST. PETERSBURG, FLA. — Rejoice, Colorado Rockies fans. Your team is leaving the state of Florida after the first seven games of a 162-game season. And they’re leaving with three wins to their credit.

Judging by some of the comments (and even articles) I’ve seen over the last few days, you would have thought that the entire season rested on whether the Colorado Rockies could get out of Miami and the Tampa/St. Petersburg area with everything clicking perfectly on the mound and at the plate. Spoiler alert: It didn’t and panic seemed to set in.

They didn’t go 7-0? Season’s over I guess, folks. See you in 2020.

Stop. Let’s take a step back and look at what happened on this trip because, despite some of the offensive struggles, there were some big positives that were overshadowed by the offensive frustrations.

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At 3-4, the Rockies not only gained their first-ever four-game series split in Miami (in whatever stadium the Marlins were calling home) but they also won their first-ever game in Tampa after dropping their first five games over a 15-year period at Tropicana Field.

Things certainly could have been worse than what happened over the last seven games. Yes, there are plenty of reasons to look at the offense with a critical eye. However, as manager Bud Black pointed out to me and other media members the other day, things are always magnified at the beginning and end of the season (case in point with two of the “big games” last season that Jon Gray simply couldn’t handle, right?).

Make no mistake about it. The Rockies are in an offensive funk, scoring two runs over the last 41 innings and double-digit strikeouts in every game against the Rays. But one of those runs was Chris Iannetta‘s decisive solo homer in the 11th inning of Colorado’s 1-0 win on Wednesday. Colorado’s pitching kept the Rockies in the game, with German Marquez throwing seven strong innings, Scott Oberg working with way out of a ninth-inning jam and Wade Davis finishing things off to earn the win.

Kyle Freeland settled down from a rough first inning on Tuesday night to control the Rays for the next 3.2 innings and earn 10 strikeouts. He and Marquez form one of the best 1-2 punches in the game today.

Looking back over the last seven games, Colorado’s pitching has been in the top half of the league, posting a cumulative 3.54 ERA. Even with blow-up innings from Chad Bettis, Jon Gray and Tyler Anderson (which absolutely have to be curtailed), Colorado’s starters have a combined 3.86 ERA heading back to Denver.

At the plate, I’m absolutely not going to tell you that you just know this team is going to hit. But … you also know this team has more than two homers in them during a seven-game span (what we saw during the Florida swing). The offense can come back in a hurry with the team getting their first off day of the season on Thursday and then finally returning to Coors Field for Opening Day.

When it all boils down to it, what you’ve seen in the first seven games will hardly be reflective of what you will see over the next 155 regular-season contests. There are going to be plenty of ups and downs … just like there are every season.

Take a breath, relax and get ready for the next leg of the season to start on Friday in downtown Denver. There is still plenty of baseball left to play. In fact, there are 155 more games to determine exactly how we’ll remember the 2019 Rockies. And my guess is that the opening seven games will be a distant memory sooner than you might think.