So what happens now? With the shine of a new year gone, the dust settled on the Rockies not being embarrassingly bad, what happens next? It’s the middle of the eighth inning on June 5th and the Rockies lead the division leading Milwaukee Brewers 3-1. Starting pitcher Ryan Feltner, fresh from injury, has thrown six very good innings against a tough lineup, Rockies relivers Jaden Hill and Antonio Senzatela have had event free relief innings, and we get ready for what we hope are the Rockies final at-bats of the evening before they close the ninth and jog in with their 25th win of the season.

Only they don’t. In the ninth, previously reliable Senzatela throws a double play ball away off an easy ground ball and can’t settle in after that. Four Brewers score. The Rockies are down 5-3. They tie it in the ninth, though! Excitingly it’s now 5-5 and going to extras. But the fun stops there. They’re down 9-5 in the bottom of the tenth and lose 9-7. So it goes.

But at what point are we expected to disengage? For weeks, the high of not being an embarrassment have carried us here. Yet, here is 26-43. Still very bad. Still without much of an idea of how long it will take until they’re good. The question is asked, unfairly or not, what’s the progress?

I’m always getting too sentimental here in this blog, I think. The Rockies are terrible and yet I still find ways to write about how that’s special or whatever. It’s really not. But that might be the point? It’s not special. The Rockies are a bad team in a long history of teams being bad. Throughout baseball’s history there are worse teams than this one. The Rockies place in the baseball world as a bad, mismanaged conundrum of an organization isn’t new to the sport or any sport. This is what happens. There’s always one team that’s dumb as hell. You don’t get a special prize for being a fan of it.

Yet, it’s the top of the tenth last Friday and Juan Mejia can’t get himself out of the jam. He walks Gary Sanchez, he coughs up hits, the Brewers all but put the game away with four runs. A game they were down 3-1 just about a half hour ago. It’s annoying and disappointing. But when does it stop being annoying? Surely a team that has no short term hope or talent shouldn’t drive reactions. What happens now? Does the trade deadline and draft provide more excitement? Do you hope players perform so they increase their return value? Yes, but is that all? You’d think so. Nonetheless, the Rockies are down in the bottom of the tenth and I want them to win. So what happens now?

Baseball seasons are long, arduous experiences. Mostly filled with games that are…quasi-meaningless. That is to say that a single game doesn’t impact much. Four games, five games, ten games. That’s when bad signs add up. But it’s not until 20 games you can really get annoyed and it’s really not until 60 games that you can even count anything that’s happened. It violates many of the things we hold dear about sports. We want to insta-react, demand retribution for errors as soon as they happen. Fans are often hammers searching for nails and a single game overreaction is the perfect nail. Yet, with this stupid sport, it’s logistically impossible. Despite all that, the Rockies have lost 9-7 in ten innings of a single game and it pisses me off. I know all these things above. I know the Rockies are supposed to be bad, I know that wins and losses are secondary to a new process within the organization that is taking shape, I know that a single game in June is worth basically nothing in the short and long term vision. And still, it pisses me off.

Years ago, I compared the suffering of a bad bullpen to the bible’s Book of Job. A story of a prankster God hurting a man just to prove to the devil that faith means more than whether or not someone is successful, it sounds just like a bullpen that refuses to get outs sometimes. These long nights in the middle of a summer where your team is already out of it…they do feel like a curse from a God that misunderstands his power. Only the God is really myself isn’t it? Why do the righteous suffer? Why do the righteous choose to suffer for a validation that may never come? Who will care if these hours spent watching Juan Mejia blow it make the eventual success feel better? Will I?

Don’t take me the wrong way here, I’m not going to stop watching. But the philosophical question of the day, week, month, year, is why do we suffer for fools? Is it because we aren’t special? That we come from a long line of sufferers and we hardly have the worst of the fools? Is it a fantastical belief that all of this work as a fan watching a team stink will somehow make it worth it when they don’t? Or are we the fools, really?

Ah, who is to say?

Big game tonight.

Connor’s Guys will be an update on the Guys I want to follow through the Rockies minor league system. This won’t necessarily be the best prospects, don’t expect a top-100 guy here, but guys I find interesting. Every now and then we’ll add a new guy when I spot someone putting up an interesting line or having a unique profile to look into

Belyeu and Andy Perez have seemed to swap places. Perez is starting to hit “extended slump” levels of stinky and that’s a little tough to place. Hopefully just a blip of a bad month, but it’s never good to wonder if a guy is just straight up getting figured out.

Belyeu, meanwhile, is suddenly hitting the ball out of the yard again. He’s still striking out a lot and for now it’s nothing more than a hot stretch of play. But hey, it’s better than being cooked right?

Hey, you want to talk about something with your pals this week? Want to sound interesting or smart when someone brings up the Rockies? Sick of everyone having the same thing to say so you wanna change it up? Try this on for size this week.

Is it time to call up Zac Veen? Charlie Condon? Adael Amador? Is it time to ditch the vets?

Cole Carrigg’s recent call up has sparked an interesting thought in my mind. Is this the start of it? Sterlin Thompson has been up for a bit of time and the Rockies are using this period of injuries to give young guys shots. Only, there are a few guys that haven’t quite gotten a shot. Zac Veen, Charlie Condon, and Adael Amador continue to toil in the minors waiting to be given an opportunity. Veen and Condon specifically have been solid hitters as of late, with the VacZeen popping his OPS over 900 and Condon hitting seven homers in his last 22 games. So what else do they need to show?

The injuries are not great for the players involved but certainly give the opportunity for the Rockies to get these guys up into the big league clubhouse before the trade deadline. Imagine a Rockies outfield that is Thompson, Carrigg, Veen. An infield that’s Karros-Tovar-Amador-Condon/Rumfield. Troy Johnston and Hunter Goodman splitting DH duties and out in the field. That might not work out but I’d do it. Let’s do it. Bring this up at the bar, pull up all these guys on BRef and say hey they got some young guys I like!

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