@Mark Knudson41
Strike One: Bud Black had fully planned on returning to the National League play-offs this season, but some not-so-funny things happened on the way. First, his Colorado Rockies couldn’t hit…then they couldn’t pitch… and all along they had more than their fair share of misplayed fly balls. The end result was a team hopelessly out of the play-off race before the calendar turned to September.
So those “meaningful games in September” every team looks forward to took on a whole new meaning. Instead of a pennant race, they meant a chance for Black, his coaches and the Rockies front office staff to evaluate a good number of young players from the Rockies farm system in order to see who may be able to help this club return to the post season in 2020. Guys like Sam Hilliard, Josh Fuentes, Yonathan Daza and others who will come to spring training next February trying to secure a roster spot on the big league club.
So if you look at the season’s final month through that new lens, was this September a success?
“I don’t know,” Black mused prior to the final game of the season. After pausing, he continued. “I don’t know how you define success. There’s been good stuff. A lot of guys contributing.”
Others close to the team are more certain that this particular September did provide a chance to see “who can play and who can’t play” on the big stage. Rather than depend on exhibition games next March to try to make determinations, Black and his staff can now look back at what these young players did under fire, including a final three game series sweep of the play-off bound Milwaukee Brewers at Coors field. The Brewers were fighting to try to win the NL Central Division title up until the final day when the Rockies walked them off 4-3 in 13 innings.
Black singled out Hilliard, the slugging outfielder who hit seven home runs in limited action after his late call-up after a standout season in Triple A.
“Hilliard’s done a nice job in September. That’s been pretty impressive, right? I mean seven home runs. Hitting near .270, .280 (.278 was his final batting average) he’s drawn eight or nine walks. That’s pretty good. He’s battled some really good Major League pitchers and had some really good at bats (a 1.039 OPS for the season.) He’s competed really well. That’s a really good sign.”
The Rockies have some tough roster decisions to make. Who might they try to trade and move on from? Daniel Murphy looks to be expendable. Same with Wade Davis and perhaps Ian Desmond. And what about the future of Charlie Blackmon, who has become a liability on defense but remains among the best hitters in the game? If Hilliard or Fuentes for example, can prove to be a productive big leaguer – on a minimum wage contract – the Rockies might be able to move away from an aging veteran like Murphy while absorbing some salary. And if Hilliard is deemed ready to take over in right field, the Rockies might be able to fetch a nice return for Blackmon from an American League club looking for an All-Star caliber DH.
After a lousy season, it’s nice to still have a few options.
Strike Two: While the Rockies were finishing the season like they still wanted to play, the Broncos were playing right across I-25 looking like they couldn’t wait for their young season to be over. After taking a two touchdown lead into the locker room at halftime, the vaunted Denver defense was a no-show in the second half and Jacksonville came back to steal a two point win at the final gun, dropping the Broncos to 0-4 in the fledging Vic Fangio era.
There’s not a single person associated with the Bronco in any manner, be it internally or externally, who isn’t on record saying how much better off the organization is with Fangio instead of former head coach Vance Joseph, who was fired after going 11-21 in two seasons. (Joseph was 3-1 in his first four games – and promptly followed that with an eight game losing streak.)
The disciplined, old-school Fangio will likely provide a long term improvement over Joseph’s tenure, but he and his staff aren’t off to a good start.
The new regime badly mishandled the pre-season, leading to the Broncos sending out a rusty and under prepared team on opening night in Oakland. The offensive play-calling came under great scrutiny in those first two losses, including a last second defeat against Chicago in the home opener. And in game four, after getting out to a rare first half lead and being ahead by 11 points at halftime, the Broncos failed to make any substantial halftime adjustments and got run over by the Jaguars in the second half.
To top it off, after the Broncos fell behind by six points with just over two minutes to play, and the offense was finally able to mount a successful drive, they left too much time on the clock and forced their exhausted defense back onto the field to decide the game.
For some reason, after a great catch and run by Emmanuel Sanders gave Denver first and goal at the eight with still more than 90 seconds on the clock, the Broncos offense hurried to throw a touchdown pass to take back the lead. That’s great and all…but they left Gardner Minshew and the hot Jacksonville offense a lot of time on the clock…and all three time outs.
That was obvious to any observer who had watched the Jags Leonard Fournette rush for more than 190 yard in the second half alone. Denver’s defense was spent, and still the offense rushed to score on a pass to Cortland Sutton when a slower approach would have been beneficial. The result of the quick touchdown was a tenuous one-point lead and a return to the field for the worn out and ineffective Denver defense.
It was bad game management.
Run the ball; take some time off the clock. At least make the Jags use a time out or two before you punch it in and give Minshew the ball back with plenty of time to win the game.
Fangio will prove to be a better coach than Vance Joseph. But he hasn’t proven it yet.
Strike Three: Colorado State fans with long memories recall the days when CSU was a regular on ESPN’s Thursday night WAC football. Some will say Sonny Lubick’s teams made their mark nationally by playing those weeknight games while being the only game for fans to watch that night. It was worth it.
Is it still worth it for the Rams to kick off games late at night to make sure they get on ESPN, even when they aren’t the only game on TV during that time anymore?
There’s no question that TV runs college football now, and they get to set the kick-off times. And because someone with the four letter network must think Colorado is on west coast time, this Saturday they will have a second consecutive home game kick off at 8pm when CSU hosts San Diego State.
8pm kick-offs stink.
If you don’t think so, if you’re okay with late night kick-offs and games ending around midnight then you don’t drive far to attend the games. Maybe you live in a dorm across the street from Canvas Stadium. Or maybe you don’t attend games at all and simply have it on TV…that is, until you fall asleep. (CSU’s narrow loss to Toledo ended after midnight.)
Unlike Pac 12 teams who relish the “Pac 12 After Dark” time slot, CSU isn’t getting multi-million dollar pay outs from ESPN and the other networks. It’s easy to let TV decide your kick off times when attendance and ticket revenue isn’t a big deal to your bottom line. But the Mountain West doesn’t have a billion dollar TV deal like the Power Five schools do. The MW conference members do fine, but not that fine. Not fine enough to give regular Joe Fan another reason NOT to attend a game.
The CSU – SDSU game should be a game that’s sold out. A 1:30pm kick-off and it might have been close. Yet by kicking off at 8pm, Head Coach Mike Bobo’s squad will be trying to upset the Aztecs in front of a half empty stadium. Some of that’s on Bobo and his team of course…and some of it is on ESPN for thinking Fort Collins is in the Pacific time zone.