After a season where they stormed the league and made a series case for the Wild Card, it's a bit alarming to call this Rockies team predictable. Yet...here we are.
The lineup is picking up where last year left off- DJ LeMahieu, Charlie Blackmon, and Nolan Arenado are hitting really well, with power coming from all over the lineup, and improvements from Carlos Gonzalez and Ian Desmond. Yes, some of the younger kids that they wanted to plug into the lineup this year, like Ryan McMahon and Pat Valaika, haven't truly matured yet, but the season is still young.
The pitching staff...ONCE AGAIN...continues to be problematic. And it's not that these guys aren't great at pitching. Far from it. Jon Gray is an exceptional strikeout pitcher, Chad Bettis is off to a career start, and German Marquez and Kyle Freeland aren't bad either. The problem is it's insanely hard to keep an ERA down in Coors Field. People have tried, and it almost never works, because of the absolute abundance of earned runs. And while it is great that the Rockies have a ton of great hitters, it also means that they are vulnerable enough to be subsequently hit against. And unless somebody invents some kind of technology to encase Coors Field in an anti-gravity bubble that balances the air pressure to that of a normal stadium, this may be what Rockies fans will be expecting for years to come. It's a sad truth, and it's one that might stop this particular Rockies team from getting especially far.
However...it is early. I mention that it's early because the 2017 NL Champs are lower in the NL West standings than a team of 30-year-olds. The Rockies are still in second place, and they could vastly improve as the season goes on. The same goes for their pitching. It's something to hope for, even though it could be tricky to master.
Coming Tomorrow- The powerful 3rd baseman for a relatively limp AL East team.
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