Colorado Rockies: The mixed thoughts and opinions of Nolan Arenado’s Thursday comments

The St. Louis Cardinals had their home opener today and former Colorado Rockies third baseman Nolan Arenado suited up as a Cardinal for the first time in the regular season wearing the home, white Cardinals jersey.

After Brewers manager Craig Counsell inexplicably pulled his starting pitcher early for the second straight game, the Brewers bullpen blew the lead for the second straight game for them. (Counsell pulled Brandon Woodruff out of the game against the Cubs after tossing seven innings of one-hit ball against the Cubs on 74 pitches on Wednesday and he pulled Corbin Burnes after six scoreless innings after allowing only one hit on 86 pitches).

The Brewers bats haven’t been particularly lighting the world on fire either but the Cardinals, at least on Thursday, weren’t either. They hadn’t scored a run in the first six innings but Eric Yardley allowed a run in the seventh to tie the game at one.

The bottom of the eighth inning comes around and Drew Rasmussen relieves Yardley, still in a 1-1 tie. Tommy Edman strikes out to lead off the Cardinals half of the inning and Austin Dean, a pinch-hitter, walks.

Up comes Nolan Arenado.

On the first pitch he sees from Rasmussen, Arenado launches a 97 MPH fastball that was middle-in and it landed 373 feet away in left field for a two-run home run that made it 3-1 Cardinals where the game would stay and the Cardinals would win.

1) Did Nolan Arenado sign a contract extension two years ago just to be traded?

Honestly, we’ll likely never know this answer.

However, thinking is that Arenado wanted to be traded before he even signed the contract officially is … suspect.

The likely scenario is that Arenado signed the contract and then, mid-season, saw the team was on the downward slide (for which they have continued since), and then requested a trade.

But with the pandemic, he likely wouldn’t have opted out after 2021 anyways because with opting out he likely wouldn’t have gotten a better contract on the open market, especially with the collective-bargaining agreement coming up this offseason.

So, it stands to reason that he would not sign a huge contract extension and not ask for an opt-out clause. After all, Rockies GM Jeff Bridich admitted that he and the Rockies front office added it in for him.

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2) Did Nolan Arenado never have a curtain call as a Rockie?

In short, yes. I think that likely, he meant to say that he didn’t have one of that magnitude.

Sometimes people don’t believe that athletes are fallible but they are. Sometimes, players are caught up in the moment of things and say things that they a) don’t realize they said or b) said incorrectly.

Like I mentioned earlier, it could even be a semantics game that the cycle was not a “curtain call” because it was a walk-off and he never left the field.

But he admitted that the home run that completed the cycle on Father’s Day 2017 “still probably tops this just a little bit.” So it’s still a moment that he says he remembers fondly on.

Also, the Rockies drew great attendance numbers for much of Arenado’s career with the team, even when they weren’t playing well.

So, these questions may not be able to be definitively answered (at least right now) but, there’s always some food for thought when looking back to some of the best moments in Rockies history.