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I told you guys last week we had another week or so before the team's recent history suggested that the Rockies had played their worst of the season. We're now in that zone, and last night's frustrating, winnable loss to a bad team like the Astros fits the pattern of games that in retrospect we've labeled the late Spring turning points of Colorado's last two playoff teams.
For 2007, it was the May 20th dud against Kansas City that seemed to be the worst moment of the season, the game where hope officially died. For the Rockies of 2009, hope was probably killed in the series against Los Angeles that finally cost Clint Hurdle his job in late May, but it stayed dead through the first three games at Houston against the Astros. The most sickening of those was the June 2 blown save by Huston Street, a game the Rockies eventually lost in 11 innings.
So when I saw Houston and Kansas City back to back in the 2010 schedule when it came out last year, I figured this is where it would be. The Rockies will come out of this weekend with Mark Kizsla and Woody Paige writing the obituaries for the season on Sunday. Requiem for the Rockies. Jim Tracy will be throwing his hands up in the air and pointing the finger of blame at some player or another, probably a relatively young and inexperienced one (I don't think Tracy's a bad manager, I just think he has the relatively common flaw of not being able to admit his own mistakes). Maybe the boycott the Monforts movement will again pick up steam.
Stuff will be bad. You will feel sick as a Rockies fan, frustrated, angry, hurt and confused. You will need to let those emotions go or else the few remaining passengers of flight 815 may never get off the island. Jack Bauer might lose his soul in a relentless pursuit of revenge. The kids in Glee will be destroyed by Doogie Howser, MD. Sweet and innocent Miley Cyrus will lose her battle with the evil inside her, Hannah Montana, going full on to the dark side. Americans will stop buying stuff and complaining about their government. You do not understand, Rockies fans, the fate of the universe is in your hands.
Okay, I kind of lost my train of thought in that last paragraph there. Sorry. But, the point is that it's not the death of the season that concerns us as Rockies fans, but what comes after. Let it go, and we'll see where 2010 takes us.
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