For weeks, the Rockies looked down their noses at the competition, improbably leading the National League West. But on Sunday, the Florida Marlins took off the Rockies’ glass slipper and beat their faces into a bag of lumps.
After the Marlins’ numbing three-game series sweep, secured with a 4-3 victory at Coors Field, the Rockies have a problem.
One-third of the way into the season, they have revealed themselves as a team that can’t hit. At least not when it matters most.
Since May 1, they are batting a chilling .191 (45-for-236) with runners in scoring position. Only the Kansas City Royals, who are challenging the 1962 New York Mets for futility, and the Chicago Cubs have scored fewer runs than the Rockies this year.
Is it any wonder Colorado has fallen two games under .500 for the first time this season?
“It’s hard to explain, for whatever reason we just aren’t getting the big hit,” Rockies outfielder Matt Holliday said. “As a team we need to do better. It’s not an issue of effort. It’s just not happening right now.”
Holliday is the only player not infected by the slump. He hit a 455-foot home run to left field that bounced off the concourse and out of the stadium. As he charges toward his first All-Star Game appearance, he too often is the only volume in the lineup.
Teams like to talk about making noise, baseball parlance for producing extra-base hits. Those have become nonexistent for the Rockies with men on second or third base – try 12 total over the past six weeks.
“It’s frustrating. But it’s not like you can point to one guy,” general manager Dan O’Dowd said after the Rockies’ 10th loss in 12 games dropped them seven games behind the NL West-leading Arizona Diamondbacks. “You just have to be patient and believe that eventually you will get through it.”
The Rockies’ ugly performance over the weekend – outscored 21-5 by the NL’s worst team – was further evidence they are white-knuckling at-bats. It’s a topic players don’t like to discuss, but it’s clear that as the slide deepens too many players are trying to do too much. Clint Barmes’ seventh-inning single Sunday snapped the Rockies’ 0-for-28 stretch with runners in scoring position.
“You can’t think, ‘We haven’t done it for a few days, so I have to do it right now. I have to pick them up,”‘ said outfielder Brad Hawpe, the victim of a bad call during a seventh-inning pinch-hit at-bat. “It’s just not going to happen then. There’s enough pressure in the game as it is without self-inflicted pressure.”
The danger is that the hollow bats will affect confidence. The Rockies’ current 12-19 stretch is more reminiscent of their haunted past. Veteran reliever Ray King stressed the importance of players not taking the game home with them, saying, “If you keep beating yourself up, you look up and it’s too late.”
Offense is built around failure, with even the best players succeeding only 30 percent of the time. As such, the solution is contradictory, requiring a calmer response, the greater the crisis. The Rockies’ challenge remains daunting, a hard- hitting if not sober reality awaiting if the funk doesn’t dissipate soon.
“I am sure people are thinking, ‘Oh, it’s the same old Rockies losing,”‘ tough- luck starter Jason Jennings said. “But I don’t sense that ‘here we go again’ attitude in here. This is a different team. We believe we can get out of this.”
Staff writer Troy E. Renck can be reached at 303-820-5447 or trenck@denverpost.com.
