How Nolan Arenado and the Colorado Rockies reached this critical moment

There is plenty of focus at the moment at the frayed relationship between Colorado Rockies general manager Jeff Bridich and his All-Star third baseman, Nolan Arenado. In a matter of moments on Monday night, the emotions of Rockies fans bounced in more directions than those of a hormonal teenager.

It started with Patrick Saunders of The Denver Post breaking the news on Monday night that Bridich was putting an end to any trade talks regarding Arenado after rumors had been flying around for days.

Happiness! Arenado is off the trading block!

Less than an hour later, however, Arenado reacted to the story in text form to Thomas Harding of MLB.com, saying in part that he felt, “There is a lot of disrespect.”

Later that night, Arenado sent another text to Troy Renck of Denver’s ABC affiliate (and former Rockies beat writer with the Post, saying, “Jeff is very disrespectful. I never talk trash or anything. I play hard, keep my mouth shut. But I can only get crossed so many times.”

Disbelief! Arenado comes right out on the attack after Bridich!

That’s also when the reality and gravity of the situation began to settle in. Arenado and Bridich were at a crossroads and it was quickly getting ugly for the entire world to see.

Anger! How could this have happened?

And just for good measure, let’s throw in grief, regret and apathy in there as well as many other emotions being felt by Colorado’s fan base. It was a night that no one on Rockies Twitter will ever forget … and for good reason.

But let’s face it. None of this happened overnight. This volcano of disdain had been bubbling under the surface for quite some time. On Monday night, Mount Arenado blew and it was an epic, possibly franchise-changing eruption.

So far over the last several hours, we have focused on the eruption. But let’s take a look back at some of the moments that we guessed and also knew there were some issues potentially lurking beneath the surface between Arenado and Rockies management. The warning signs were there, but little was seemingly done to put a stop to them.