If you told me three months ago I would be releasing two articles about the Rockies all season, I would have a hard time believing you. If you told me I’d release two articles about the Rockies before June, I’d call you crazy.
But here we are. The Rockies forced my hand and have been an absolute rollercoaster over the last few weeks. After a brutal 1-9 stretch from April 27th to May 8th that we’ve come to expect from this team, the Rockies have shockingly flipped the script with a scorching 7-game winning streak.
The Rockies went from losing series to the lowly Marlins, Pirates, and Astros, to sweeping the defending Champion Rangers and a Padres team that had two of their best pitchers lined up against them.
Let’s go over the driving factors behind these opposing streaks and analyze if the current hot streak is what we can expect going forward.
The Slump
A 1-9 record is never good, but sometimes you could be a couple of plays away from a couple of those games being wins. How bad was this 1-9 record though? Honestly, the fact they even won a single game is impressive. Their pitching staff was terrible, allowing 9 hits and 5.7 runs per game over that span leading to an unsightly 5.54 ERA. When they weren’t allowing their mandatory hit per inning, their control was a major issue, allowing nearly 4 hitters to reach base via walk or HBP a game. Lastly, they weren’t missing bats, striking out just under 6 hitters a game leading to an awful 1.5 K: BB ratio and .264 BAA.
The offense was anemic as well, mustering just 6.9 hits and 2.9 runs per game. Strikeouts were rampant at over 10 per game compared to only 3 walks (3.4 K: BB ratio). When the Rockies did make contact, it was largely weak, hitting just 0.7 homers and 1.1 doubles per game en route to a measly .207 team batting average.
It’s hard to blame one of these areas for the slump. Both are terrible. The pitching staff had almost no margin for error with an offense that struggled so much that a three-run homer basically guaranteed the other team a win. On the other hand, even if the offense managed to get a lead, they couldn’t rely on their pitchers to keep the lead.
The WWWWWWWin streak
Well, it would’ve been tough for it to get worse. After this abysmal 10-game stretch, the Rockies have looked nothing like themselves…they look really good. The Rockies’ bats have gone from hitting dangerously close to the Mendoza line, to hitting at a hall-of-fame clip with a .306 batting average and 10 hits per game. The slugging has also increased with the batting average as the Rockies are averaging 2.5 doubles and a homer per game, leading to their runs per game increasing to over 6 runs a game, more than double their previous 10-game average.
Somehow, someway, the pitching staff has been as good if not better. During this 7-game streak, Rockie pitchers have been lights out, allowing 6.9 Hits per game and a .215 BAA. They’re also giving their offense plenty of chances to take leads, allowing only 2 runs per game during this win streak, good for a 1.85 ERA.
Is this New Rockies?
As incredible as this recent 7-game tear has been, underlying metrics suggest it may be an unsustainable surge. On the pitching side, the vastly improved run prevention has been enabled more by an unusually low .215 batting average against rather than substantially better strikeout, walk, or home run rates (6.3, 4.6, and .85 per game respectively). With their peripherals staying mostly stagnant, the 3.69 drop in ERA from the losing streak seems like an anomaly that will inevitably regress.
The historic .306 team batting average is even more unlikely to continue, as hitting over .300 is a herculean feat for any individual player let alone an entire lineup. Additionally, the Rockies' strikeout-to-walk ratio has actually worsened during the streak, and they are stranding runners on base at virtually the same clip as before.
So while this incredible Rockies hot streak has been fun to watch, the underlying metrics suggest this level of domination won't last and they’ll revert to the Rockies we’ve grown accustomed to watching every day.
No comments:
Post a Comment