Saturday, April 12, 2008

Rockies Illustrate Why Showing Up Another Team is Dangerous

On Opening Day, Friday, April 4th, 2008, at Coors/Molsen Field in Denver, with all eyes glued to the huge video screen in center field, including those of the visiting Arizona Diamondbacks, scenes of the Rockies’ victory over the that same Arizona team were played, including the last out of the series made by nemesis Eric Byrnes on a desperate head-first slide into first base.

Showing up the Diamondbacks like that is something that is seldom seen in professional sports because it is poor sportsmanship, of course, but also because it gives the other team more motivation to beat your team. The Rockies are paying for their snide gesture toward Arizona in spades. So far, they have lost their first five games to the D’Backs by scores of 8-1, 7-2, 5-2, 8-2, and 10-3. That’s a margin of 38 to 10 if you’re counting.

The Rockies finally beat Arizona on April 13th, 13-5. But when they returned to Phoenix on May 13th, they resumed losing, 8-4, 4-3, and 8-5, running their season record to 1-8.

Arizona has begun the 2008 season as the hottest team in baseball and are amassing what may prove to be an insurmountable 11 game lead over the Rockies in the West, all due to another clueless gesture by the same Rockies brain trust that brought you the “God’s team” declaration in Sports Illustrated and the monumental World Series ticket fiasco in 2008. At least they are number one in something.

The Baseball Observer

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