This Week in Purple: City of Champions... Rockies on Deck?

The weekend is a great time to kick back and reflect. This Week in Purple is the place to catch up on the news from our team at Purple Row. You’ll find links to Rockpiles and other content below as well as a platform for community discussion in the comments.

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While the city of Denver has been celebrating the Denver Nuggets NBA Championship (grab some championship merch here!), the Rockies went 3-4 to bring their season record to 29-43. This week, our writers looked at some of the players who have been contributing (Ryan McMahon and Justin Lawrence), looking ahead to the future in the MLB Draft, and discussing other implications of this current injury-riddled season and that of the Nuggets and how that could affect the Rockies.

Read what everyone had to say below!

To Read

• Ryan McMahon always hits a hot streak at some point during the season, and the last 34 games (as of Monday) have been the 2023 variation. Kenneth Weber profiled McMahon’s numbers for his Rockpile. Hopefully he can keep it up!

• The MLB Draft is right around the corner, so Renee Dechert started her annual predictions. For her Tuesday Rockpile, Renee profiled University of Tennessee right-hander Chase Dollander, Wake Forest right-hander Rhett Lowder, Grand Canyon shortstop Jacob Wilson and Jesuit HS (OR) right-hander Noble Meyer. Will any of them come to the Rockies this summer?

• After the Denver Nuggets historic NBA Finals win on Monday night, Skyler Timmins turned his sights on the Rockies for his Wednesday Rockpile and how they become World Series champs. They came close in 2007, and it did take the Nuggets 47 years to finally make the Finals... will it take the Rockies that long to win their first championship? Hopefully not, but who knows.

• For his Thursday Rockpile, Evan Lang highlighted Justin Lawrence, who has been lights out for the Rox this year. As of Thursday, Lawrence has pitched 38 innings (T-5) over 31 appearances (T-9). Lawrence has had a bit of an up-and-down career so far, as many baseball players do, but he seems to be finally sticking this year and being used in high-leverage situations. Hopefully he and Jake Bird can continue to lock down the bullpen for the foreseeable future!

• Finally, for her Friday Rockpile, Joelle Milholm asked the question of how the Rockies will respond to this injury-riddled season. They have lost Brendan Rodgers, Lucas Gilbreath, Tyler Kinley, Germán Márquez, Antonio Senzatela, Ryan Feltner, C.J. Cron, Kris Bryant and Charlie Blackmon, just to name a few. Will the Rockies use this as an excuse if they finally hit the dreaded 100-loss mark, or will they look beyond that and make some changes for the future?

To Listen

• Affected by Altitude: We Tried Nothing and We’re All Out of Ideas — This week, Evan and Skyler discuss the frankly concerning and somewhat inexplicable power drain the Colorado Rockies are facing as they simply aren’t hitting home runs at any sort of steady pace. We also discuss Pierce Johnson as a pitcher after the Colorado native lost the closing role, and discuss who we think should take over as closer going forward. We’ll give you a hint, it’s Justin Lawrence. Meanwhile, we round things out by having a little fun and drafting historical lineups to pit against one another on the fields of battle!

Weekend Discussion Topic

When will the Rockies finally win the World Series? Will it take 47 years? What will it take to get there? Sound off below!