Remember last year's White Sox? As in, the guys who knocked the 1962 Mets out of the book for season-long futility? The guys who sat 17-49 as of today's date last year, but sit at a whopping 22-44 as of today, this year?
This year's Rockies seem bent upon making everyone forget last year's Blight Sox. And it only begins with their sitting 12-53 this morning, after they spent the weekend getting nudged, knocked, and then nuked by the best-in-the-National League Mets, who just took the season's series from both the worst-in-Show Rockies and the best-in-the-NL-West Dodgers.
This year's Rockies also seem bent upon setting precedents. The wrong kind. As in, this year's model lost 50 games before winning their 10h. Last year's Blight Sox didn't achieve that. Neither did the 1962 Mess. If you're wondering whom else achieved the Rockies' kind of futility, hark back to 1876 and 1884. In order: the 1876 Cincinnati Red Stockings (the inaugural season of the National League, children) and the 1884 Kansas City Cowboys of the ancient Union League.
Well, give the Rockies this. They did manage to begin 10-50. The Red Stocks and the Cowboys opened 7-50. You're going to have to try harder to swim that far down to the ocean floor, Rocks. Though being on pace to finish (count 'em!) 67.5 games out of first place sure won't hurt in that department. So is being on pace to finish (wait for 'em!) 100 games below .500.
Sit on it, 1899 Cleveland Spiders. Eat your hearts out, 1962 Mets. Look to your lack of laurels, 2024 White Sox.
You thought one-time Cleveland matinee idol Grady Sizemore got a raw deal when his first 45 games as a major league manager landed him a 13-32 record carrying last year's Blight Sox to the finished line? Take a good look on your bridge, Rockies. Warren Schaeffer may have Sizemore on speed dial for moral support after a) succeeding Bud Black, who was sent home with his head on a plate and b) having the dubious dishonor of going 2-17 in his first 19 games on a major league bridge.
The better news for Schaeffer might be that he's not along among major league skippers who started their bridge careers going 2-17. He's one of a gang of six that also includes Joe Quinn (the aforementioned 1899 Spiders), George Smith (the 1902 New York Giants), Frank Robinson (the 1988 Orioles, they of the season-opening 21-game losing streak), Alan Trammell (2003 Tigers), and Al Pedrique (2004 Diamondbacks).
It's been so bad that the Rockies' usual differential between playing at their lighter-than-air home and going on the heavier-than-air road merely magnifies theirs and their fans' agony: entering Sunday's play, the Rockies won exactly 6 games each at home and away, while losing four less at home than on the road.
The Mets might have been expected to have a little compassion for the Rockies on Sunday considering their ancestral birth ("Come an' see my amazin' Mets — I been in this game a hundred years, but I see new ways to lose I never knew existed yet" — original Mets manager Casey Stengel), but then this year's Mets are doing nicely enough defying even the lofty expectations with which they were sent to open the year. That was a 13-5 demolition the Mets wreaked upon the Rocks Sunday, highlighted by Pete (Polar Bear) Alonso hitting a pair of 2-run homers to put him ahead of David Wright into second place on the franchise's all-time bomb list.
It's bad enough up there outside Denver that when Alonso circled the bases waving his fist to the crowd, any home fan booing was almost inaudible and it seemed even Rockies fans cheered Alonso's blasts.
Rocky Mountain High, my foot.
Catch Us If You Can Dept. — The rebuilding Nationals handed the regrouping (and injury-flecked) Diamondbacks a too-early smackdown a week ago Saturday: they pushed, shoved, whacked, and smacked nine runs across the plate before recording an out. In fact, being the top of the first, they'd pushed, shoved, whacked, and smacked 9 runs home before anyone recorded an out, which (you guessed it) never happened in the Show before, according to several sources. The Snakes did their best to catch the Nats, but it wasn't enough, the Nats holding on to win 11-7.
Dial 7-2-4-2-5-2-3-6 for Double Play Dept. — An eight-digit double play? Yes, on May 24. Dialed by the Cubs's South Bend affiliate. It went like this:
* Fly out to left field.
* Left fielder throwing home to the catcher on the fly.
* Catcher throwing to second to catch the runner trying for third in a rundown.
* Second baseman breaking away from that baseline to chase the man on third trying to score and throwing back to the catcher.
* Catcher taking the throw as the runner hits the breaks and breaks back to third.
* Catcher throwing to third baseman.
* Third baseman throwing to catcher, runner still hung up.
* Runner retreating back to third safely, third baseman pointing to first base, catcher throwing to first baseman.
* First baseman trotting toward second, turning to the infield grass, spotting runner off second trying for third.
* Throw to the shortstop now at third, prompting a chase down the third base line and the shortstop finally tagging that lead runner out.
And if you can follow all that without blinking, sighing, coughing, choking, or collapsing . . .
I Miss All the Good Stuff Dept. — The Oakland Athletics of Las Vegas via Sacramento — or is that the Sacramento Athletics of Oakland via Las Vegas? The Las Vegas Athletics of Sacramento via Oakland? — had their own horrific 1-20 stretch . . . and that one win found someone missing during the celebratory handshake-and-fist-bump line after they banked the win, namely manager Mark Kotsay. The reason: Kotsay was run in the eighth for arguing a strike call. Feel free to say it's going to be one of those years for the beleaguered A's — if it hasn't been already.
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