On August 3rd, after a convincing 12-2 win over the Dodgers, the Rockies found themselves over .500, the first time they have had more wins than losses this late in the season since finishing the 2010 season 4 games above break-even (despite concluding that year with an 8 game losing streak). The starting staff had 20 quality starts in July (just 7 fewer than they had in all of 2012!), giving Rockies fans the long-forgotten enjoyment of monitoring the standings and rooting against our close NL competitors, just three games back of the second wild card spot.
The Rockies proceeded to lose 10 of their next 12 games, and while an outside chance at a playoff berth is not completely impossible, the nightly fun of keeping an eye on the standings proved short lived. Four of the first 6 losses saw the Rockies with the lead in the 8th inning or later, and 3 of those leads were at least 2 runs. Two of those leads were blown by at-the-time closer Carlos Estevez, who now finds himself as likely to pitch in the majors in the next week as the other, much more famous Carlos Estevez.
Most Rockies fans suspect that Walt Weiss tends to make decisions based on what he sees smart managers do, without properly accounting for the Rockies unique make-up that may or may not accommodate these decisions. This is especially evident with the Rockies having led the NL in infield shifts in 2015, while finishing 29th in Defensive Efficiency (after having the fewest shifts in 2014 and finishing 24th in Defensive Efficiency).
Walt unfortunately did not follow this typical behavior with his bullpen during the rough stretch. He rewarded Carlos Estevez with the closer role after his strong early season performance, and Jake McGee's injury. While most blown saves are a base hit and a blast, maybe due to a single poorly placed pitch, the 23-year-old Estevez coughed up a 2 run lead on August 5th against the Marlins and couldn't rightfully blame any of it on bad luck. Despite having Adam Ottavino, a proven veteran bullpen arm with closing experience who has literally not given up an earned run in nearly two years (of course, it's a 30 inning streak without giving up an ER with a length Tommy John interruption in the middle), Walt felt confidently that Estevez should get the late inning looks. Estevez had pitched well in the week before his meltdown to be fair, but clearly something had gone wrong, as his ERA ballooned from 3.66 to 5.36 in 10 days, over which the Rockies playoff hopes nearly vanished. And Walt didn't do anything about it until it was too late.
Today, the Rockies demoted Estevez to AAA. He was entrusted with late inning leads against other teams also pushing for a playoff spot as recently as one week ago. Sure, Estevez has shown flashes of having great late inning stuff, much like his countryman Miguel Castro, but unlike Castro, who was sent down to the minors in June, Weiss seemed to think Estevez was immune to the typical pressure and inconsistencies that derail young pitchers. Weiss was throwing out a minor league pitcher night after night when the Rockies were in the thick of a playoff race.
Assuming the decision to demote Estevez came from the front office, the move may imply that Bridich and co. find Weiss's decision making questionable, as in contrasts so distinctly with Walt's over-confidence of last week. Bringing up Jeff Hoffman to replace Chatwood instead of Eddie Butler seems to be another move by the front office that contrasts what one would typically expect from Walt. These moves seem to be an admission by the front office that his managerial decisions tend to not give the Rockies the best chance to win. If the playoff hopes continue to dwindle, will the Rockies finally pull the plug on Walt and bring someone in to lead the team back to the playoffs in 2017, as we've seen throughout this year is definitely not out of the realm of possibility?
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