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After getting outscored 43,000 to 19 over the past four games, the Rockies have gone from 13-6 darlings of the early season to 14-9 eyesores apparently.
The Nationals systematic beatdown of Rockies pitching over the past three days has been nothing short of a disappointment. It brings back all of your worst memories: that time Allison turned you down in front of everyone at the 8th grade dance; that time you were turned away from a party your crush was in because you didn’t have pitch money; that time McDonald’s took away the McFlurry machine. All of these moments would have been monumental positive things in you life, all taken away by mean people with mean ideas. The Nationals are no different than Allison or those frat bros at the party door or the McDonald’s executive who didn’t see enough profit margin in McFlurrys. They’re all here to step on your heart and destroy your dreams.
After this disaster of a series, the Rockies fandom now finds itself in full fledged panic watch. April baseball is full of these moments. There aren’t a lot of games to fall back on so each one feels like a roller coaster. If the Rockies dropped three of four to Washington in mid June to stay five games over .500, the narrative probably wouldn’t be the same. But here we are in April with only 23 games to look at and it’s a Bush-Administration-after-Katrina level disaster.
PANIC WATCH 2017 is founded in the idea that the Rockies will always collapse when the going gets tough. We’ve seen this movie before, we know how it ends. It ends with a 77-85 season and trading an outfielder for Jordan Lyles again. This is how this works.
It’s not wrong to officially be on PANIC WATCH; it is not crazy to believe these Rockies are the same as all the other Rockies. We’ve been hurt before and we will all be hurt again. PANIC WATCH is a guard of our emotions. If we give up now, we can’t be hurt if and when they continue to collapse.
But there is no fun in PANIC WATCH. Like swearing off dating after getting your heartbroken, you’re removing risk and chance from your life and, with it, you’re removing life. The cynics, the haters, the people clogging Facebook with vitriol, they don’t have fun with anything. Each win by the Rockies is just delaying the inevitable, each loss is simply what was supposed to happen. When you play this game, you obviously always win. Even if the Rockies prove you wrong and win the World Series you get to go to the parade, you risk nothing in your endeavor.
That’s why PANIC WATCH is mocked: not because emotions are bad or because you shouldn’t feel gun shy after seeing the Rockies collapse May after May, but because engaging in the PANIC WATCH lifestyle is an easy out. It’s giving up. You’re not smarter than those that still believe, you’re not “more realistic”, you are simply a quitter. You gave up at the earliest possible chance. The Rockies losing isn’t something you predicted, it’s something you desired. Because caring is hard and you want the excuse to stop.
The realistic approach to the Rockies is that they likely aren’t a 101 win team. That’s fair and reasonable. The PANIC WATCH approach is that the Rockies are finished, that ownership has once again set them up to fail, and everyone who continues to watch them is dumb for doing it.
In the end, the Rockies may be coming back to Earth. Or, they just ran into a buzzsaw of a Nationals offense that has been wrecking every pitcher they see, some strange cold nights, and a young pitching staff unequipped to handle a wrecking ball. Either of these situations could be true. I guess the point is, there’s no fun in telling anyone they shouldn’t be hopeful of the latter.
I made a graphic below to outline where you are on the PANIC WATCH scale.
Don’t slap your dad! Football Friday does not condone Dad Slapping.
★ ★ ★
The Good Tweet of the Week
This week’s good tweet is from Rockies Twitter Rookie of the Year Matt Hansen who tweets:
The discourse is not good today
— probleMattic (@M5Hansen) April 26, 2017
This discourse on Twitter is not good today.
Or any day.
Evergreen.
The discourse is bad, please discuss the discourse in the comments.
★ ★ ★
Nolan Arenado vs.
This week we will pit Nolan Arenado (currently on an MVP pace) against Purple Row’s twitter mentions.
Purple Row’s twitter mentions during a loss are the worst place on Earth. The passion from Rockies fans runs deep and there are lot of people with emotions.
This leads to just hours upon hours of yelling and yelling and yelling into the void at me and Bryan and the crew. It’s just...we get it. The Rockies are playing bad. You’re frustrated. Please stop yelling at us.
Nolan in a landslide.
★ ★ ★
Rockies are gonna win the World Series
BOOK IT.