Colorado Rockies' Furious Late-Season Charge Makes NL West a Three-Team Race

Carlos Gonzalez has been behind the Rockies late-season charge into playoff contention.

All season long I, as well as many other baseball fans, have focused on the fight for the National League West crown, a battle between the San Francisco Giants and San Diego Padres. The two teams have fought tooth and nail, backed by superb pitching and excellent situational hitting. Considering their similarities, they have stuck close throughout, with neither taking a very substantial lead over the other.

I thought it would just be between those two, but then summer turned to fall—the Colorado Rockies time of year. Backed by the incredible hitting of Carlos Gonzalez and the dominant pitching of Ubaldo Jimenez, the team has come out of nowhere to find itself just 1 1/2 games back of both San Francisco and San Diego as of September 12th.

Gonzalez, their 24-year old center-fielder, had a solid start to the season, but few believed it would become what it has. He hit over .300 the first couple of months, possessing some power. Then a switch was flipped and he was as locked in as can be. He hit .382 in a month of July in which the Rockies had a stretch of 12 losses in 14 games, but as he continued to rake, the team began to catch fire as well. He hit .344 in August, but was especially effective in the latter portion of the month, compiling 14 hits in 31 at-bats as September neared.

Over that 31 at-bat stretch, Colorado won six of eight to cut an 11-game deficit to seven. And now that deficit is nearly gone, as Gonzalez has only increased his production in the season’s final month for the Rockies, a team that has forgotten how to lose. Including a 2-3 performance in their most recent game against Arizona, a win made possible by Jason Giambi’s two-run blast in the bottom of the ninth, Gonzalez is hitting a whopping .439 with a .489 on-base percentage.

All the sudden, a good but still relatively quiet year turned into an MVP-caliber season for him on a team that transformed from a middle-of-the-pack club to a playoff contender. The offense has been one of the majors best during their late-season jolt, but Gonzalez has seemingly been behind every rally. He is CarGo, as he is referred to in Colorado, their go-to guy. Rarely has he not delivered. He is hitting .337 on the year, with 32 homers, 100 rbi’s, and a .373 on-base percentage, and has a .332 average with 13 homers and 81 rbi’s when runners are in scoring position.

The Rockies latest win was their tenth in a row, and though they have been helped significantly by the Padres recent 10-game losing streak as well as the Giants inconsistent play, they are on a roll only they are capable of going on this late in the season. While the Padres and Giants appear tired entering the final stretch, the Rockies are picking up steam.

Gonzalez is doing a lot of the heavy lifting, but Colorado would be nowhere without production from the other seven capable hitters in their lineup. The Rockies have scored the most runs in the majors this month and are fifth in the National League in runs scored since the All-Star Break. Young shortstop Troy Tulowitzki has eight homers already this month, outfielder Eric Young Jr. is hitting .361, and the likes of Melvin Mora and Dexter Fowler have soundly contributed as well. As an offense they have the highest batting average (.308) and on-base percentage (.382), and the most homers (17), rbi’s (66), hits (119), and runs (70) in the National League this month, and lead major league baseball in all of those categories except for home-runs.

Just because they are hitting the cover off the ball gamely doesn’t mean their pitching hasn’t been good. For September, their team 3.58 ERA is good for 11th in the majors, and Jimenez anchors a starting rotation that holds a 3.10 ERA. Jimenez, who was 15-1 on July 8th, just recently picked up his 18th win, which is a testament to the rest of the staff for putting together enough solid outings to result in an extraordinary amount of victories.

Still, it’s not a staff that screams success. Jimenez is really the only recognizable name, but Jorge De La Rosa, Jhoulys Chacin, Aaron Cook, and Jason Hammel have supported him the best they can. Teams cannot hit their way to the Rockies current total of 79 wins; great pitching performances have to be widespread as well in order to be so successful.

Their rotation isn’t eye-catching and future Hall of Famer Todd Helton isn’t hitting, but behind CarGo, Tulo, and Ubaldo, the Rockies are determined to continue to put pressure on the Giants and Padres as postseason baseball is once again in their midst.