The Rockies’ 18th home season ended Wednesday afternoon amid an explosion of fireworks, a procession of players and coaches flipping mementos to the crowd and, yes, one final bit of irony.
Who knew that, in the end, with the National League West pennant at stake, the Rockies’ inability to win at Coors Field would be their undoing?
The ballyard in LoDo had been a temple of doom for opponents, but not down the stretch. The Rockies’ 7-6 loss to the Dodgers marked a first at Coors Field in 2010. Seven times the Rockies had swept an opponent, but this was the first time an opponent had turned the tables.
“We just didn’t click,” Troy Tulowitzki said. “When we were scoring runs, we were giving up a lot of runs, and when we were holding them, we weren’t scoring many runs. That was really the tale of the tape. It’s weird, but it’s baseball.”
Don’t blame outgoing Dodgers manager Joe Torre for this one. Torre started his B-lister lineup, resting Andre Ethier, Rafael Furcal and Rockies killer Casey Blake. The night before, after the Rockies had been eliminated, Torre scratched Clayton Kershaw in favor of Carlos Monasterios, who was making his 13th start.
Not that it mattered. Ian Stewart’s error on Ryan Theriot’s groundball in the third inning Wednesday opened the floodgates for five unearned runs off Jhoulys Chacin, four scoring on Matt Kemp’s two-out grand slam.
The loss was the Rockies’ seventh in a span of nine home games and saddled them with their first losing homestand — if you don’t count their Sept. 2 makeup game with the Phillies — since Jim Tracy became the manager in late May 2009.
The Rockies were 50-22 at Coors Field through Sept. 12 before running out of gas. They finished with eight home losses in September, three more than in any other month.
But you know what? It didn’t seem to matter as the sun set and the players and coaches mingled with the fans. This was, by all accounts, a very good season, just not good enough.
“It didn’t work out like we had hoped,” Todd Helton said. “Sometimes expectations are tough. It’s been a tough year overall. We’ve had some great moments, but in the end, we didn’t get the job done and that’s all that matters.”
Tracy went out of his way to thank the fans in front of the cameras. And why not? The crowd of 33,296 brought the season total to 2,875,245, the highest for the franchise since 2001. That averages out to 35,497 per game.
All those people didn’t just witness a wild ride filled with crazy comebacks, a Cy Young Award run by Ubaldo Jimenez and a Triple Crown chase by Carlos Gonzalez. They also saw standards being raised.
No longer are the Rockies satisfied with a winning season. Or back-to-back winning seasons, which they’ll have this year regardless of what happens in their final four games.
They want to make the playoffs and make something happen upon arrival.
“We’re winning and we’re not happy,” said Tracy. “We’re dissatisfied. That means there are other places for us to go, other places we want to go. We haven’t gotten there yet, but we’re going to.”
Said Tulowitzki: “Before, you just wanted to hopefully have a winning season. With this team, we should have made the playoffs and we didn’t, so we should consider it a failure of a season.
“The Rockies have come a long way. We’ve got 83 wins. If we’re sitting here six or seven years ago, everybody would be pretty happy with that. But things have changed. That’s where we’ve turned the corner. We expect to win.”
Jim Armstrong: 303-954-1269 or jmarmstrong@denverpost.com
Looking ahead
TODAY: Rockies at Cardinals, 6:15 p.m., FSN
The parade of shut-down pitchers does not include Jason Hammel (10-8, 4.56 ERA). He showed enough in his last start, a loss to the Giants, to prove that he’s not at risk for further injury after a bout of “dead arm.” Hammel owns a 6.41 ERA this month and hasn’t had an effective start since beating San Diego on Sept. 4. His velocity has hit 95 mph, but his location has been compromised. Matt Holliday is 2-for-3 against him. Chris Carpenter (15-9, 3.31) has been dominant at home, winning 11 games with a 2.94 ERA. He is unusual because of his ability to mix a big curveball rather than a slider with his sinking fastball.
Troy E. Renck, The Denver Post
Upcoming pitching matchups
Friday: Rockies’ Jorge De La Rosa (8-6, 4.24 ERA) at Cardinals’ Jake Westbrook (9-11, 4.38), 6:15 p.m., FSN
Saturday: Rockies’ Ubaldo Jimenez (19-8, 2.99) at Cardinals’ Kyle Lohse (4-8, 7.09), 11:10 a.m.
Sunday: Rockies’ Esmil Rogers (2-2, 6.22) at Cardinals’ Jeff Suppan (2-8, 5.38), 12:15 p.m., FSN
