![\"Scott](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/SCOTT_ROCHAT-1.jpg\")
Scott Rochat \/ Rochat, Can You See?<\/p>\nIt\u2019s finally come. We\u2019ve started a new season of pain, otherwise known as Colorado Rockies baseball. And so, my fellow acolytes of the Purple (are there any left?), I have a question for you.<\/p>\n
Will the Rockies be bad this year? Or will they be really, really, really bad?<\/p>\n
Believe it or not, the distinction matters.<\/p>\n
Scott Rochat \/ Rochat, Can You See?<\/p>\n
We know the extremely bad. After last season, we know it in a way that\u2019s more intimate than ever before. In a long stretch of painful Rockies baseball, last season was the year that burned the scorecard and then danced on the ashes. Pretty much every commentator in the game predicted an awful year for the Rockies in 2025 \u2026 and in the end, that turned out to be optimistic.<\/p>\n
But this offseason, the Rockies were going to Make Some Moves. They hired a new baseball mind who was going to Shake Things Up. They had a spring training run that was Not Too Bad \u2026 which would mean more if it weren\u2019t for the fact that last year\u2019s Cactus League run was also More or Less Decent.<\/p>\n
And so, like the out of control bus on the ice with no brakes, we know it\u2019s going to be bad. But we can\u2019t say how bad until the collision comes.<\/p>\n
And once again, it really does make a difference whether we\u2019re looking at Awful or Apocalyptic.<\/p>\n
If we\u2019re still wandering in the wilderness, forget it. Sell the season tickets and stand outside Coors Field with a picket sign saying WHEN WILL BASEBALL COME TO DENVER? We know this song and it has gotten old.<\/p>\n
But if we\u2019re merely bad \u2014 that may be a sign for hope. That can be bad with a purpose.<\/p>\n
Because as the saying goes, you have to be bad before you can be good.<\/p>\n
Most of us know this in our own life, though it\u2019s easy to forget. It takes thousands of hours to become a skilled musician or mechanic or medical brain specialist. But when we struggle in the early going, a lot of us throw up our hands and say \u201cI can\u2019t do this \u2014 I quit.\u201d (Hopefully not in the middle of a brain surgery.)<\/p>\n
That\u2019s because most of us have bought into the myth of talent.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t mean to say that talent doesn\u2019t exist. Some people really do seem to have an instinct that lets them learn at Mozart-like speeds, while some are more or less tone-deaf. But there\u2019s a long, long spectrum in between \u2014 one that\u2019s defined by how much you\u2019re willing to endure and learn from along the way.<\/p>\n
Muscles ache before they become strong.<\/p>\n
Move that to the sports world and \u2026 well, as Denver fans, we\u2019ve had a master class in the distinction. We know the difference between the years when the Broncos just seemed to be playing How Fast Can We Fire Our Coach or Quarterback THIS Time? and when they actually seemed to have a direction. The latter eventually built to something \u2026 almost to a Super Bowl, in fact.<\/p>\n
As one sports outlet pointed out, the Rockies can improve and still lose 100 games this year. Will the effort be there? On the field, in the front office, in the places where it counts?<\/p>\n
We can\u2019t answer that yet for our ball club. But we can try to answer it for ourselves. Forget Hollywood. Let yourself be bad at something. Take the time it needs to become passable, OK and honestly good. Build the momentum it takes, whether you\u2019re learning a skill, improving a situation or changing the nation.<\/p>\n
And if you watch some baseball while you do it, try to hold out at least a little hope for the future of the Men in Purple.<\/p>\n
Even when it\u2019s more like The Black and Blue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s finally come. We\u2019ve started a new season of pain, otherwise known as Colorado Rockies baseball. And so,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":652393,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2405],"tags":[5,83454,167,52,4316,1041,1358,4,169,5386,83456,83455,168],"class_list":["post-652392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-colorado-rockies","tag-baseball","tag-can-you-see","tag-colorado","tag-colorado-rockies","tag-coloradorockies","tag-front-range","tag-local-news","tag-mlb","tag-news","tag-opinion","tag-opinion-columnists","tag-rochat","tag-rockies"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116318235854936317","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652392","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=652392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/652393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}