What’s Powering the Purple Express?
Destiny or Deception? Illusion or Improvement? Magic or…maybe nothing?
Last time on DSZ…
The question on everyone’s mind now is, can the Rockies do it? That is, can they overachieve and drag themselves above .500 and, surprisingly enough, into contention?
The Rockies have done it. At 38-34 and just 3.5 games back after a sweep of the Yankees, our boys are in thick of things. Denver is talking about the Rockies, and the Purple Express is chugging to the top of the baseball world.
Still, fans and skeptics are uneasy. And why shouldn’t they be? Last year the Rockies contended going into the All-Star break before returning to their usual form. The team’s entire history can be essentially summed up as one false hope after another followed by spectacular letdowns. Why assume that this particular shuffle of the cards is any different?
Without getting too far into the stats, I can tell you that the team probably is overachieving right now. The starting pitching should not be this dominant, Willy T should not be leading off this well, and even Brad Hawpe shouldn’t be flirting with .300. Mark Donohue, who may be the only person I know who would rather be right in predicting failure than have his team win and admit error, has already written off this particular streak as just that, with a few acknowledgements of the success it’s ushered in:
As for the Rockies. They’re not awful, and clearly more progress has been made than it first appeared in those brutal early weeks of the season where everyone that remained who cared including myself was screaming for the immediate dismissal of Clint Hurdle and Dan O’Dowd. That’s good, but they aren’t going to win the division. They’re not going to make the playoffs, either. I like to dream as much as the next baseball fan, but there are playoff pitching staffs and then there’s what the Rockies have and I know what the difference is.
Clearly, Mark has a right to be pessimistic. But in my opinion, he also has a responsibility to be supportive. He’s probably right that this team is not playoff bound, but I don’t think it matters. Regardless of what’s actually behind the Purple Express, even if it is just smoke, mirrors and a few above-average performances, we should celebrate the sudden appearance of good baseball in Denver. If the Rockies can keep it up on the road, average attendance should rise into the 35K+ level for the next homestand (which doesn’t include the Yankees), and the buzz will only continue.
My hope is that if this modest success can generate enough excitement, the Monforts will realize that Denver can be a VERY good and profitable baseball town. If this product can put more bodies through turnstiles after half a decade of below-.500 baseball, imagine what a consistently good, or just consistently competitive, team can do for the bottom line. Maybe, just maybe, this streak will convince the Monforts that spending a little more money (and grabbing a decent GM) will pay off. Maybe next time the Yankees roll around the consecutive sellouts will start in the hundreds, not at one.
Isn’t that something worth being optomistic for?
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