They beat the Cubs,<\/a> 2-1, in 13 innings in the NL wild-card game at Wrigley Field, but then got swept in three games by Milwaukee in the divisional round. It\u2019s been downhill ever since, with Colorado closing in on seven consecutive losing seasons and now headed toward a third consecutive 100-loss season.<\/p>\nBut the \u201918 Rockies were loaded, especially in the infield with Ian Desmond (22 homers, .729 OPS) at first, Gold Glove winner LeMahieu at second (15 homers, .749 OPS), and Story, the Silver Slugger winner, at shortstop (37 homers, .914 OPS).<\/p>\n
In the outfield, the Rockies had Charlie Blackmon (29 homers, .860 OPS) and Carlos Gonzalez (16 homers, .796 OPS), as well as veteran Gerardo Parra (six homers, .714 OPS). Para, along with CarGo, brought some levity to an otherwise all-business clubhouse.<\/p>\n
Lefty Kyle Freeland (17-7, 2.85 ERA) and right-hander German Marquez (14-11, 3.77 ERA) anchored a strong rotation. Freeland and Marquez, along with right-hander Antonio Senzatela and third baseman Ryan McMahon (a role player in 2018), are the only players remaining from that team.<\/p>\n
Does Freeland ever look back?<\/p>\n
\u201cAbsolutely,\u201d he said. \u201cI feel like every organization can look at players that were dealt away or not re-signed in free agency. I mean, what if we did have DJ at second, Story at short and Nolan at third for a longer, extended period of time?<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are so many \u2018what ifs,\u2019 but it always comes down to the fact that this is a business. Guys want to test free agency, and they want new contracts. And you have to ask, \u2018Do they want to be here?\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
How good was that 2018 team?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was very good,\u201d Freeman said. \u201cYou look at that core of veterans who moved on and what they have done in the game, and you do wonder, \u2018What could have been?\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
Arenado said that the camaraderie on Colorado\u2019s last playoff team was \u201cspecial.\u201d The work ethic was \u201cexceptional.\u201d<\/p>\n
In his opinion, the game has changed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think what I\u2019m seeing now, compared to that group, was that that group was super excited to come to the field every day and get to work,\u201d he said. \u201cI felt like everybody was chasing being great \u2014 individually.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe weren\u2019t that good, we were pretty good, we weren\u2019t great. But it was a totally different vibe from what I see now from players, compared to those players (in \u201918). The guys got to the field at 12:45 every day. Guys were excited to get to the field early, and we stayed late all of the time. Now, it\u2019s just different.\u201d<\/p>\n
Want more Rockies news? Sign up for the Rockies Insider to get all our MLB analysis.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nearly seven years have passed, but \u201cwhat if\u201d still lingers. What if the Rockies had made some dramatic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193605,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2403],"tags":[3569,5,160,1005,1006,52,1009,1012,665,34970,140,1490,1022,853,4,1027,1819,1028,1494,5706,185,673,67,4311,4310,738],"class_list":{"0":"post-193604","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-louis-cardinals","8":"tag-antonio-senzatela","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-cardinals","11":"tag-carlos-gonzalez","12":"tag-charlie-blackmon","13":"tag-colorado-rockies","14":"tag-coors-field","15":"tag-dick-monfort","16":"tag-dj-lemahieu","17":"tag-gerardo-parra","18":"tag-german-marquez","19":"tag-ian-desmond","20":"tag-kyle-freeland","21":"tag-latest-headlines","22":"tag-mlb","23":"tag-more-rockies-news","24":"tag-national-league-west","25":"tag-nolan-arenado","26":"tag-ryan-mcmahon","27":"tag-silver-slugger","28":"tag-sports","29":"tag-st-louis","30":"tag-st-louis-cardinals","31":"tag-stlouis","32":"tag-stlouiscardinals","33":"tag-wrigley-field"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114894232153024719","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193604\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}