Prior to Game No. 162 on Sunday at Coors Field, with the NL West title up for grabs and the Rockies’ postseason seeding still murky, Colorado second baseman DJ LeMahieu stood in the home clubhouse and exuded a quiet wisdom for the final time this regular season.
Throughout the roller-coaster that has led to Colorado to this point — tied at 90-71 with the Dodgers atop the division — the Rockies have demonstrated a remarkable trend of resiliency that the two-time all-star expects to translate to crunch time.
“We’ve played really well this year, and we’ve played hard to be where we’re at,” LeMahieu said. “I think in our mind, there’s a lot to do yet. Hopefully we can finish strong.”
Sunday’s affair against Washington could very well be LeMahieu’s last regular season game at Coors Field as a Colorado player, considering his contract is up at the end of the year and there have been no discussions between he and the front office on a new deal.
But the second baseman isn’t thinking at all about the bittersweetness of a playoff season that will likely be the last of his eight-year career in LoDo. Instead, he and his teammates’ focus is on “taking the situation of (Sunday’s) game away, and playing like we’ve been playing for a couple weeks now.”
“It seems like we’ll have a tough series or whatever, a tough stretch, and we’ll always come back stronger,” LeMahieu said. “That’s how it’s been all year. This is a group of winners, honestly, it’s a group of winners that keeps coming back. When our back’s against the wall, we play our best. I don’t expect that to change.”
