Colorado Rockies: Winning is not always a good thing

It is not often that playing good baseball is bad, but this is one of those times for the Colorado Rockies.

Entering the All-Star break, the Colorado Rockies are coming off three straight series victories and winners of seven of the last 10 ballgames that included a season-high five straight wins. The issue here is that the recent success could lead to the front office having grand illusions of a possible playoff run … except the chances for a run is very little, if not zero.

The Rockies’ are have a record of 43-50 and are currently 8.5 games back of the San Diego Padres for the last Wild Card spot with four other teams ahead of them and their schedule is absolutely brutal down the stretch.

Here is how tough the final 69 games look like for the Rockies:

• 39 road games/30 home
• 27 games against the Dodgers, Padres, and Giants, 14 of which are on the road
• 21 games against teams who are in first place in their respective divisions (Dodgers, Brewers, Mets)
• 48 games against teams who are currently over .500
• 9-game road trip to San Francisco and Los Angeles to end the season (two sites where they have been historically bad)

Could the Rockies make the playoffs? Of course they could. Anything is possible in baseball, but their current playoff odds by most prognostications is less than 1 percent.

Those odds mean that the Rockies should and need to be sellers at the trade deadline. Players such as Daniel Bard, Alex Colomé, C.J. Cron, Jose Iglesias, Chad Kuhl, Randal Grichuk, and Charlie Blackmon could all bring a some solid returns if Rockies general manager Bill Schmidt decided to sell … but this recent run of good baseball will likely keep them making such move.

Rather than making three or four trades for prospects or players that could help them in seasons to come, the Rockies will probably be quiet and make only one trade (most likely Iglesias) and hope that the players they have are enough to make a run at the playoffs.

Had the Rockies entered the break on a downturn, they would be ready to start the rebuild that needs to happen. Instead, the Rockies will end up hanging on to some of those expiring contracts and have nothing to show for it when they sign elsewhere in the winter.