In a weird year like 2020, it can often be difficult to know what day it is, let alone the current month. Sometimes, we need reminders to snap us out of what seems like a time warp and back into reality. But what is reality, really? After all, we could just be stuck in a post-Y2K simulation being run by some data analyst with spiked hair and a soul patch. Does anyone really know?
Of course, there are clues that this is, indeed, an unprecedented year that perhaps was actually scripted in a sci-fi book somewhere. We’ve all seen things on the news or within social media posts that have never really happened before—on a large scale, anyway. We don’t need to get into that here. And then, there are sports, which are being played for the first time (outside of Miami, anyway) with no fans in attendance, with the games and players instead surrounded by cardboard cutouts or video boards. Weird stuff.
And then you see truly bizarre things within the sporting world such as Major League Baseball’s Colorado Rockies, long considered a team completely devoid of any sort of effective pitching, boasting a starting rotation that ranks among baseball’s best. That’s never happened! But just as you feel like you’re starting to enter the twilight zone, familiar things begin to resurface. Images of football practices are popping up in news feeds. People are preparing to go back to school. It’s 100 degrees at 10 a.m. And, those same Colorado Rockies—why is a middling baseball team at the forefront of your mind with all of this other stuff happening, anyway?—are finding every possible way not to score runs on the road.
Oh, hey, I know what this is. This … this must be August! Life is real! I can feel again!
The Rockies managed just two runs on six hits in 20 innings of baseball en route to being swept in a two-game series by the Houston Astros. One of the Rockies’ runs came in the 10th inning on Tuesday, the first time Colorado has played in extra innings this season and, thus, their first exposure to the new rule that places a runner on second base at the start of each half inning following the completion of nine full frames. Trevor Story came around to score on a base hit by Raimel Tapia in the top of the 10th, but after the Astros tied the game despite the efforts of reliever Yency Almonte, the Rockies failed to score with runners on second and third and just one out in the 11th. Houston quickly plated a run off of Jairo Diaz to secure its second consecutive 2-1 victory over Colorado.
Rockies starters Kyle Freeland and Antonio Senzatela combined to allow just two runs on 10 hits and zero walks in 14 innings, and they got absolutely no support aside from the aforementioned asterisk-laden extra innings run and a Trevor Story solo homer on Tuesday. No Colorado player had more than one hit in the short, two-game series, and the offense struck out a mind-numbing 27 times.
When an entire team manages just one extra-base hit and only six hits total in a series, it’s safe to say that just about everyone is slumping. But Nolan Arenado’s road performance, unfortunately, deserves to be brought to light. After going 1-for-8 in Houston, Arenado is now just 5-for-35 with no extra-base hits in 10 games away from Coors Field. With road games against the Dodgers and D-backs remaining this month, it’s imperative that Arenado gets back on track, to at least some degree, if the Rockies are going to avoid digging themselves into somewhat of a hole.
Colorado returns home to face these same Astros for another quick two-game set before setting out on the aforementioned road swing through Los Angeles and Phoenix. The Rockies will send a couple of strikeout pitchers in Ryan Castellani and Germán Márquez to the mound in an attempt to exact revenge on the sweeping ‘Stros. It would be advantageous for Colorado’s offense to show up, as well.
