![\"Scott](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/SCOTT_ROCHAT-1.jpg\")
Scott Rochat \/ Rochat, Can You See?<\/p>\nOk, I was kind of ready for the Colorado Rockies to look better this year. After all, they set the bar pretty low in 2025. And 2024. And \u2026 well, you get the idea.<\/p>\n
But with relief pitching?<\/p>\n
Really??<\/p>\n
Scott Rochat \/ Rochat, Can You See?<\/p>\n
Yes, like the monster in a Frankenstein movie, the Rockies bullpen has finally come to life. New pitches. A lower ERA. A reinvented starter (Antonio Senzatela) who\u2019s become so much of a fireman, he might as well take the mound with a Dalmatian.<\/p>\n
No, we\u2019re not winning every game. But we\u2019re no longer heading into the seventh inning with a crate full of Pepto-Bismol, either. It\u2019s a weird, wild, almost wonderful feeling.<\/p>\n
Who knew that the Rockies could pitch?<\/p>\n
I\u2019m in the minority among baseball fans these days \u2014 I am, and have always been, a pitching enthusiast. Home runs are cool and all, but as a teenager, it was Orel Hershiser\u2019s 59 straight shutout innings that captured my imagination. Go back even earlier and you\u2019ll see me grinning from ear to ear as my English granddad reveled in the excitement of Fernando Valenzuela \u2026 a name that assumed a truly epic sound with a British accent trying to pronounce it.<\/p>\n
So when the Blake Street Bombers came to town \u2014 well, I loved them of course. But we were kind of an oil-and-water match.<\/p>\n
As we all know, Coors Field is where pitchers usually go to die.<\/p>\n
Sure, you can overstate the effects of the Mile High altitude. Just don\u2019t stand within slamming distance of home plate when you do it. Even after running the baseballs through a humidor, this is still the field that welcomes batters with open arms, while dis-arming anyone who steps on the mound.<\/p>\n
So to have a Rise of the Relievers this season is \u2026 strange. It\u2019s like Superman producing a utility belt. Or Bob Ross painting happy little skyscrapers.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s welcome. Boy, is it.<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s not a bad reminder to the rest of us who live our lives away from the diamond.<\/p>\n
If you know baseball history, you know that teams used to lean heavily on the starting pitcher. As recently as the early 1970s, it wasn\u2019t unusual to see a starter notch 25-30 complete games in a season. Go back to Walter Johnson and Cy Young days and the totals pile even higher.<\/p>\n
What changed in the \u201870s? One big thing was relief specialists \u2026 pitchers who built their careers around the bullpen. That not only saved games, it saved a few arms, too.<\/p>\n
It makes a difference when you don\u2019t have to try to do everything yourself.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an easy trap to fall into. Demands pile up. Needs get higher. But \u201cI can do it,\u201d is the battle cry. Maybe because you\u2019re shorthanded. Or because you want to be sure it\u2019s done right. Or because \u2026 well, because you\u2019ve always been the one to do it.<\/p>\n
But sooner or later, even the best burn out.<\/p>\n
Ringo Starr had it right: \u201cI get by with a little help from my friends.\u201d There\u2019s no shame in getting help. It\u2019s ok to \u2026 well, get some relief.<\/p>\n
I know some of us have more options for that than others. It\u2019s why we all need to be there for each other. Life piles enough rocks on us; no one should have to lift the load alone.<\/p>\n
When we can be that second set of trusted hands \u2014 or receive help from it \u2014 it makes a world of difference.<\/p>\n
Just ask the Rox.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ll be glad to show you what can happen when someone pitches in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ok, I was kind of ready for the Colorado Rockies to look better this year. After all, they…\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-696128","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\/116556214951161411","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696128","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=696128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696128\/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=696128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=696128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=696128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}