Rockies back to losing just as they should be

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The impulse to fix the Colorado Rockies before it is too late assumes that it is not too late. Of course, it is. It became too late the first time Manny Corpas did not close, the first time pitcher Franklin Morales did not get out of the third inning, the first time shortstop Troy Tulowitzki felt a twinge.Wait till next year. What was so enduringly familiar is now defeatist?Hardly so. Excuses that once were accepted without challenge do not suddenly become aggravations, insults to the fan base, violations of the public trust.These are the Rockies. They have always been the Rockies. They will continue to be the Rockies.They can't pitch. They can't get the timely hit. They can't stop a rally or sustain one.When have they ever? Except for one delightful spasm last autumn.Their manager handles pitchers as if they were condiments, the general manager wrings his hands and conspires to keep his job, the owners count the house and count on miracles.So, what's new? Last season was new. Rocktober was new. Faith was new.All of that achievement disrupted the normal, violated the routine, put fresh paint on the old ways but changed nothing essential.Teams have an identity, earned over the years, and as young as the Rockies franchise is, what it has been for all but one of its years in existence still defines it, a non-pitching, sometime hitting, non-ruthless, easygoing loser.The Rockies have not been around long enough to supply generations of agony as, say, the Cubs do, as the Red Sox did. Or to establish the consistent character of those impatient win-or-else teams in New York, the champ-a-decade consistency of St. Louis, the come-late, leave-early tradition of the Dodgers.Consider the twin entry from Florida, the Marlins. At the same age as the Rockies, they have managed to buy a title twice, once in 1997, then in 2003, building a legacy of improvisation.The theory that the Rockies are one top-flight, No. 1 pitcher away from being what they were is the kind of retro-think that once produced Mike Hampton and Denny Neagle.And it was not Aaron Cook or even Jeff Francis that sewed together that furious finish last season. It was Morales and Ubaldo Jimenez and Corpas out of the bullpen, and if all but Cook are reverting to form, it would seem the Rockies need a whole deck rather than one ace.Even had Tulowitzki not injured himself so early, the Rockies would be where they are. The same is true of the more recent absence of Matt Holliday.This is a team as comfortable at their normal level as they were astonished to be so far above it.Why Willy Taveras would be called out on strikes with the bases loaded trying to walk in a run rather than swing at the ball or why Yorvit Torrealba would bat with sunglasses on when the sun is at his back, these are not questions as much as expectations.It is just another indication that this is a team not really serious about its work.To lose now seven in a row on the road, with sweeps by both the Phillies and the Cubs, is too common to be a surprise, and too pathetic for sarcasm.What happens next in Los Angeles or after that through the summer has happened before and often. Memories are too long and too fresh to be replaced by a little blip such as the World Series.There is not one trade or even two that will matter, no shake-up as dramatic as firing the manager, to change things, to rescue the season, even to build for seasons beyond.The Rockies are back down to earth, if still geologically a little higher than most others, and there is a calm comfort in that. The Rockies are free of all the extraneous baggage, no respect to be demanded, no MVP oversight to be resented, no Rookie of the Year to be coveted, no All-Star, other than the manager and the minimum of one player, and that is twice what it usually is.This is simply baseball now, each game its own unit, to be won or to be lost, to be enjoyed for its immediate delight or suffered for its brief disappointment.Like most baseball seasons elsewhere. Like baseball seasons forever here in Denver. (Contact Bernie Lincicome of the Rocky Mountain News at lincicomeb(at)rockymountainnews.com.)