Quotes of the Day
#1: "It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone." ~ A. Bartlett Giamatti#2: "People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring." ~ Rogers Hornsby
#3: "To make no mistakes is not in the power of man; but from their errors and mistakes the wise and good learn wisdom for the future." ~ Plutarch
Well, here we are, 12 hours later, and it's still sinking in and the questions are still unanswered. How can our season be over already? How can we have just gotten swept by the Rockies? How come luck didn't go our way? Why didn't the offense show up? Who should we root for now? What's going to happen in the off-season?
There's plenty of time to think about all those questions now that we're out after 4 (Republic). Yes, a lot of things went the Rockies' way all series (MLB.com) but they were the catalysts for all those things happening - the good baserunning, the fabulous defense, the timely hits, the surprising bullpen. The Rockies were everything the Diamondbacks weren't (except our bullpen was pretty darn fabulous too). But the Diamondbacks never stopped battling (MLB.com) and came close, once again, in the 9th - they played all 27 outs, they were never out of it until the last ball was caught by Helton. Congratulations to the Rockies on a fabulous run, and stay hot. I hope you sweep right over the American League team you face next week.
A lot of things in this series can sum up the Dbacks' year.. the year of the strong bullpen, a lack of offense, young baserunners. But think of what we did right - we started three rookies, sometimes four. We blasted some mammoth home runs. We struck out some big opponents. We made some diving, leaping, and acrobatic catches. We have TSN's NL Manager of the Year. (MLB.com) And that is also indicative of the Dbacks' season, a season in which we had the best record in the league, won the NL West, and played our way into the NLCS. We should be very proud of the way they played through the year and remember they are likely to get even better next year. (MLB.com) This experience hurts, yes, but this team will come out strong again next year, knowing they can do it again.
Believe it or not it may be a relatively quiet winter (Republic) with a lot of the players still tied to us. But there are still plenty of questions to be answered. Do we trade away Chad Tracy and Carlos Quentin? Do we get a healthy RJ back (heh) come spring? Can Mark Reynolds learn not to strike out as much? Will Bonifacio beat out Callaspo for the reserve infielder spot? Who in the world will be our #5 starter? (Hm, that question sounds familiar...)
Stay tuned for all that and more... the off-season is just beginning. :)