Sprint to The Finish

Baseball has long been described as a marathon, not a sprint, but with two weeks left in the season, it becomes a sprint to the finish for teams like the Rockies.

Despite the trip up in LA yesterday, the Rockies are positioned well if they can turn on the afterburners to the finish. Because they have been on a roll the past couple of miles, the question becomes do they have enough gas left for the finish?

The NL West Title is looking more and more the likely scenario for the Rockies to get to the Playoffs. The Rockies fell 3.5 games off the Braves pace for the Wild Card over the weekend. The Braves could trip up especially with 6 games left against their NL East opponent the Phillies, however, the Rockies like in 2009 should focus on the West regardless.

One thing many people have overlooked is that the Rockies have shaved 10 games off the Padres lead in 4 weeks. On August 22, the Rockies trailed the Padres by 11. Now they trail them by 1, an incredible move, although in 2007 with their 14 of 15 sprint, they gained 9 games on the NY Mets who although in 1st place in the NL East at this point, eventually fell behind the Phillies, Padres and Rockies to allow the Rockies play the tiebreaker with San Diego. And that all took place in two weeks.

This year from this point it doesn't take a miracle finish, all they have to do is play 2 games better than both the Giants and the Padres and their first NL West Title will be theirs.

Do they have it in them to accomplish that? Stay tuned for the final sprint in the marathon.

Rockies 2011 Schedule

The Rockies have released the full 2011 Tentative Schedule:

The Series (all series 3 games unless noted in Parenthesis)
April 1-3 Arizona
April 5-6 L.A. Dodgers (2)

April 7-10 at Pittsburgh (4)
April 11-14 at N.Y. Mets (4)

April 15-17 Chicago Cubs
April 18-20 San Francisco

April 22-24 at Florida
April 25-27 at Chicago Cubs

April 29-May 1 Pittsburgh

May 3-5 at Arizona
May 6-8 at San Francisco

May 9-11 N.Y. Mets
May 13-15 San Diego
May 16-17 San Francisco (2)

May 18-19 at Philadelphia (2)
May 20-22 at Milwaukee

May 24-26 Arizona
May 27-29 St. Louis

May 30-June 1 at L.A. Dodgers
June 3-5 at San Francisco
June 6-8 at San Diego

June 9-12 L.A. Dodgers (4)
June 13-15 San Diego
June 17-19 Detroit

June 20-22 at Cleveland
June 24-26 at N.Y. Yankees

June 28-30 Chicago White Sox
July 1-3 Kansas City

July 4-7 at Atlanta (4)
July 8-10 at Washington

July 12 All-Star Game at Phoenix

July 14-17 Milwaukee (4)
July 18-21 Atlanta (4)

July 22-24 at Arizona
July 25-27 at L.A. Dodgers
July 29-31 at San Diego

Aug. 1-3 Philadelphia
Aug. 4-7 Washington (4)

Aug. 8-11 at Cincinnati (4)
Aug. 12-14 at St. Louis

Aug. 15-17 Florida
Aug. 19-21 L.A. Dodgers
Aug. 22-24 Houston

Aug. 26-28 at L.A. Dodgers
Aug. 29-31 at Arizona
Sept. 2-4 at San Diego

Sept. 5-7 Arizona
Sept. 9-11 Cincinnati

Sept. 13-14 at Milwaukee

Sept. 15-18 San Francisco (4)
Sept. 19-21 San Diego

Sept. 22-25 at Houston (4)
Sept. 26-28 at San Francisco

More analysis later...

Now it Gets Very Interesting

After struggling so long on the road this season, the Rockies have finally found their bats and have now won 7 in a row on the road all against NL West Opponents. Of course one very big bat in Troy Tulowitzki is only part of the story. Carlos Gonzalez, Melvin Mora, Jason Giambi, and Todd Helton are all starting to deliver again.

It's almost as if the antithesis of everything that went wrong in the first 120 games is all bottled into the final 40 games. Although it's not quite in the Rockies hands, a big finish say at 10-4 could very well put them in the playoffs, with a little bit of help, from other teams.

Cautious Optimism

The Rockies are riding a 7 game winning streak and have won 14 of the past 18 after knocking off the Reds today to complete a sweep of the 1st place Reds. They can't afford a let down now as the last place D-Backs come to town while the Padres and Giants play 4 in San Diego meaning with every win, they will pick up ground on one of the two teams ahead of them. San Diego then comes to Denver next week which puts the Rockies in a head to head to make a move on first place.

Meanwhile the Dodgers are fading and are now 7.5 games behind the Rockies which gives the Rockies an excellent chance to finish ahead of the Dodgers for only the 2nd time in their history.

The Cardinals and Atlanta also have a 4 game series in Atlanta. The more games the Cards can win helps the Rockies in the Wild Card Race.

Lots of possibilities remain for both Playoff berths, but the Rockies need to continue the roll they are on especially while they are home.

Total Collapse by the Padres???

In my last post,I put a caveat in "barring a total collapse by the Padres". Scratch that now. The total collapse of the Padres over the last two weeks, has allowed the Giants to get within 1 of the NL West Lead, and the Rockies have gotten to within 4.5 games with 4 weeks to go. The Padres have only one off day the rest of the year (Sept 20). The amazing thing about their 10 game losing streak is that 7 of the 10 have been at home. The 2nd most amazing thing about the losing streak is that 4 of the losses have been to last place Arizona.

The Rockies have another big week ahead of them. Although at home they have to play 4 against the Central Leaders Reds, before playing 3 against Arizona, while the Padres and Giants are trading blows for first place in 4 games this weekend. Before that the Padres play the Dodgers, while the Giants play 3 in Arizona early in the week.

The Rockies still have a long way to go, but they can't afford any more 3 game skids like they did last week in San Fran and the make-up game with the Phils. Granted they picked off the first game by the bay, but had they pulled out one of the other two, and avoided the disastrous 7th inning against the Phillies, they'd only be 2.5 games out of first and in much better shape.

If anything the stop in Denver helped them pick up their bats for San Diego.

It's not over yet, folks, but the run needs to happen now.