If winning 13 of 14 to finish a regular season is cause for civic celebration, as it was in 2007, then losing 13 of 14 to finish a season should be cause for more than a shrug.
The Rockies’ dispiriting collapse of 2010 did more than leave a sour taste after a close-but-no-cigar season. It raised questions about this team’s psychological makeup and leadership.
It is a sporting cliche that you cannot afford to get too high or too low through the course of a long season. The Rocks did both. They had two invigorating winning streaks that were accompanied by an almost collegiate spirit. Both were almost immediately followed by soul-sucking losing streaks that left the club where it started or worse off.
They were like benders and hangovers. It was as if the entire roster went manic.
Among the most revealing of the club records this year was a 30-inning scoreless streak that ended in the eighth inning of Sunday’s finale in St. Louis. The Rocks’ largely futile approach at the plate away from Coors Field saved its best for last.
The failure of young players such as Ian Stewart, Seth Smith and Chris Iannetta to become reliable everyday contributors was about more than ability.
“Some of these guys need to demonstrate that they have a sense of urgency to want to get better,” general manager Dan O’Dowd said Friday. He did not name those names, by the way. I did.
O’Dowd named a couple of others.
“Last year, I think we saved 76 percent of our games,” he said. “This year it was more in the 64-65 area, and that’s a big difference. We need Huston Street to be Huston Street again. We need him to be good. I believe strongly that last year we had Dennis Eckersley, and this year, from spring training on, we didn’t have the same guy.”
The Rocks are also in an odd limbo at first base, where Todd Helton’s determination to return means O’Dowd cannot yet begin the transition to the team’s next first baseman.
“I need to count on that rebound,” O’Dowd said. “He’s got to be a better player. He knows that more than anybody.”
But the Rocks have issues greater than any position question. Maybe no single plate appearance better represented these issues than Stewart’s eighth-inning at-bat Saturday as the club tried in vain to score the single run that would have earned Ubaldo Jimenez his 20th victory.
Dexter Fowler stood at third base with one out. Stewart’s job was simple: Put the ball in play. He’s a big-league ballplayer. He was batting third, for crying out loud. He took two balls from Cardinals reliever Kyle McClellan, then launched three big swings and misses, the last on a pitch that bounced before reaching the catcher.
“The one thing that’s been frustrating to me here is we still don’t have a clear offensive identity,” O’Dowd said. “I think we improved our strikeouts this year, but not to the point of being able to win consistently on the road and being able to produce runs by playing the game the way the game needs to be played.”
Too often, the Rocks’ approach at the plate was the big Coors Field swing, even if the hitter was not a power bat. They played smart situational baseball much too seldom.
Late in the season, hitting coach Don Baylor said he was as frustrated as anyone by the Rocks’ approach. That’s not helpful. A frustrated batting coach is a batting coach who’s not getting through. The Rocks must make a change there.
There are plenty of personnel decisions to occupy the offseason. Jorge De La Rosa’s pending free agency leads the way. But the Rockies also have some bigger questions to answer:
Is their baseball IQ high enough to play the game intelligently, or do they love their big swings too much to change?
Can they grow up fast enough to avoid the manic emotional swings that wore them out before the 2010 finish line?
Can they recapture whatever they discovered in 2009 about winning away from Coors Field?
The Rocks have never had a better hand to draw to than the young trio of Carlos Gonzalez, Ubaldo Jimenez and Troy Tulowitzki. Still, owing to the economics of baseball, they have a relatively small window in which to take advantage.
The time has come to figure out who’s ready to play with those guys and who’s not. That’s O’Dowd’s job this winter.
Dave Krieger: 303-954-5297, dkrieger@denverpost.com or
