5 reasons why the Colorado Rockies think they are playoff contenders

2) The Colorado Rockies played above .500 for two-thirds of 2021

The Colorado Rockies had an awful record to start the 2021 season. They started out by going 19-34 in their first 53 games.

While they didn’t have a comeback like the 2019 Washington Nationals (who started the season by going 19-31 but ended up with a 93-69 record, en route to a World Series title), the Rockies played much better in the final two-thirds of the season.

In the final two-thirds of 2021, the Colorado Rockies went 55-53. That is equivalent to an 83-79 record. That would put them close to playoff territory.

This leads us to point number two …

3) There is another playoff spot in 2022

In 2021, there were only five playoff spots in the National League. The second NL Wild Card team was the St. Louis Cardinals, who won 90 games but if there was a third Wild Card team, the winner would have been the Cincinnati Reds.

Do you want to guess what their record was? 83-79, which is equivalent to the record the Rockies had in the final two-thirds of the season. So even if the Rockies play at that level for the season, they might not get into the playoffs but they would be playing meaningful games in the last week of the season.

It would also keep Kris Bryant’s quote alive when he said in his introductory press conference that he has not been on a losing team and doesn’t plan on doing it in 2022.