Colorado Rockies: What are Trevor Story’s top 5 moments?

On Wednesday, Colorado Rockies shortstop Trevor Story could very well be playing his final home game at Coors Field as a Colorado Rockie.

He has also been named the best shortstop in baseball by MLB Network for each of the last two seasons.

Through his six years as a Colorado Rockie, he has amassed some great moments with the Rockies, including being part of the Rockies team-feat of making the postseason in both 2017 and 2018, which is the only time the Rockies have made the postseason in back-to-back seasons in franchise history.

But we have the top five personal moments of Trevor Story’s career thus far, including some fantastic defensive and offensive moments.

Trevor Story’s MLB debut game, week, and frankly, month for the Colorado Rockies

For our list of the top five moments for Colorado Rockies shortstop Trevor Story, why not start at the very beginning?

In 2015, the Colorado Rockies traded away their franchise shortstop, Troy Tulowtizki, to the Toronto Blue Jays. For the remainder of the season, the Rockies used José Reyes (who was acquired in the trade) and Daniel Descalso at shortstop.

The Rockies dumped Reyes in 2016, though, after he was suspended for domestic violence (in accordance to Rockies’ team policy and MLB policy) to start the 2016 season. The Rockies ate about $40 million by releasing Reyes.

However, that $40 million was easier to swallow because by the time Reyes’s suspension was served, the Rockies didn’t need him. Why? Trevor Story had already established himself as one of best shortstops in baseball in that short of a span.

Story split the 2015 season between Double-A and Triple-A, but the Rockies gave him the reins to be the everyday shortstop and he took advantage of it.

In his MLB debut, he hit second in the lineup behind Charlie Blackmon and he faced Arizona Diamondbacks’ ace, Zack Greinke. In his second AB, he collected his first MLB hit, extra-base hit, RBI, and home run. On an 0-1 pitch, he hit a three-run homer in the third inning. An inning later, he hit a second home run. Two homers and four RBI in his debut? Not bad.

But he hit a homer in the next game … and the next game … and two in the following game. Within his first four games, he had 6 HRs, 11 RBI, a .368 AVG, and a 1.316 slugging percentage. He became the first player to ever homer in his first three MLB games, among a slew of other MLB records.

There’s a reason why ESPN said that Story had one of the best debuts (and debut weeks) in MLB history.

He hit four more homers and had 9 more RBI in the month of April. He won the NL Player of the Week for his first week and won the NL Player of the Month for the month of April.

You can check out more highlights of the beginning of his career here.

Trevor Story’s leaping grab to save Germán Márquez’s then no-hitter

On June 29 of this year, Colorado Rockies ace Germán Márquez had his best start of the season. The Rockies had just come off a tough road trip as they had just been swept by the eventual NL Central champion Milwaukee Brewers on the road.

The Rockies returned home to face the Pittsburgh Pirates and Márquez had an 8-0 lead. But he still had not allowed a hit through seven innings.

For the first batter of the eighth inning, catcher Jacob Stallings lined a ball to Trevor Story and Story made the catch of 2021 for the Rockies.

Statcast had that ball as having an expected batting average of .570.

Márquez gave up one hit (a single to Ka’ai Tom) to lead off the ninth inning but it was the only hit that Márquez allowed in his complete-game shutout.

Another defensive play to add to the Trevor Story highlight reel

Trevor Story has always been a bit underrated by most of the baseball world defensively but Colorado Rockies fans have not underrated him because they see him every day.

This play from August is another example of how great Story can be on defense and a prime example of a player knowing his surroundings and knowing his second baseman (Brendan Rodgers) well.

Rox Pile’s Kevin Henry caught up with Story after the play and spoke with him about it.

If Wednesday ends up being Story’s final game at Coors Field as a Colorado Rockies player, it will be a bittersweet one. Story, like all players, wants to win and the Rockies still look far away from playoff contention. With the way things have unfolded, it looks like the chances that Story resigns with the Rockies is slim.

If that’s the case, all the Rockies will get is a compensatory draft pick in 2022 and the memories of, arguably, the best shortstop in franchise history.