Mark Knudson’s Three Strikes Blog: Strike Three:
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Why do good teams struggle against bad ones?
STRIKE THREE: Last season, the Colorado Rockies and the Los Angeles Dodgers ended up in a tie – each with 91-71 records – at the end of the regular season. The Dodgers won the National League West with a 5-2 win over Colorado in a tie breaker game.
For the Rockies, it was as close as they’ve ever come to winning the division. Just one more victory during the course of a 162-game season…one more…and they win the NL West. Where could that all important 92nd win have come from? Well, the Rockies were 2-4 against the Miami Marlins…who finished the season 63-98. They lost both the home and road three game series to the club that finished dead last in the National League East.
Otherwise, Colorado did a solid job against every team not named the Dodgers (LA won that series, including the tie breaker, 13-7.) What might have been if they’d have just been able to win ONE of the series against the Marlins?
Hold on a minute, say Dodger fans. Since we’re playing “what if,” what if LA had been able to beat the lowly Cincinnati Reds (69-93)? The Reds won six of seven from the Dodgers in 2018. And to make it worse, LA also lost the season series to Miami the exact same way Colorado did.
Every good team has their own “what ifs” every year.
Why is that? Why do good baseball teams often struggle with bad ones?
In every sport, there are upsets. If there weren’t, we’d probably give up watching all together. But in sports like football and college basketball a single game upset can be the result of a single outstanding performance or struggle on a particular day. In MLB, we’re talking about series…five, six, seven…or in the case of inter-division foes, 19 games against each other over the course of the season. In longer series, the best team most often wins more than they lose.
But not always.
Sometimes there are just match ups that favor the underdog, even in a series of games. And with the talent level being much closer to even than an outsider can understand, it doesn’t take much to tip the scales.
Mostly, it’s a mental thing. It can be subconscious, but a letdown of some sort – a small drop in intensity or a lapse in preparation – can be a difference maker. Even though good clubs prepare the same way for every opponent, it’s human nature for players to take their foot off the gas…even just a tick…when the team in the other dugout isn’t winning much.
The Rockies have historically struggled badly against Miami, both when the Marlins have been good AND when they’ve been bad. Their 2019 Opening Day win notwithstanding, Colorado seems to have a mental block about playing in Miami, where they’re 7-17 since Marlins Park opened in 2012.
While Rockies fans justifiably feel a sense of frustration when it comes to their team’s struggles against the last place Marlins, if we’re being honest, these kinds of situations – the underdog giving the favorite all they can handle and then some – is why we watch sports. It’s why we are glued to March Madness and it’s why, even though it the very first series of the new season, we are locked in on the Rockies season opening series – both of them – in the Sunshine State.
At the end of the season, we may be looking back at the season-opening seven-game Florida trip as being one of the big reasons that the Rockies did or didn’t win their first NL West title.
Wanna argue? Hit me up on Twitter @MarkKnudson41.
