It’s two weeks into his second season in purple pinstripes, and we’re still waiting for the USS Kris Bryant to dock at Coors Field.
Rockies general manager Bill Schmidt signed Bryant to a seven-year, $182 million contract in the winter of 2022 with the idea the one-time NL MVP would serve as an “aircraft carrier” for Colorado’s lineup.
Right now, however, he’s looking more like a pedal boat.
Kris Bryant — D+
Through 12 games and 54 plate appearances entering Friday night’s game in Seattle, the Rockies outfielder’s home run total this season was the same as the Grading the Week staff’s (0).
Sure, it’s still early. Just mid-April in a long, 162-game slog. But go all the way back to the start of last season, and Bryant still has only five home runs in 54 games with Colorado. And none of those have come at Coors Field.
For a little perspective: Nolan Arenado has hit three home runs at Coors as a member of the St. Louis Cardinals over that same timeframe.
In fact, you have to go all the way back to May 9, 2017, to find the last time Bryant went deep in LoDo. That’s 2,167 days, two Rockies playoff appearances, and one viral Dinger assault ago.
Even if Bryant is hitting .306 to start the season, he’s not getting paid $26 million a year to be a singles hitter. And with just 3 of 15 hits going for extra bases (all doubles), that’s all he’s been to date.
Jared Bednar — A
All season, it’s been hard to escape the feeling that the Avs are snakebit.
From Gabriel Landeskog’s season-long injury absence, to the front-loaded road schedule and countless other maladies that befell them following a Stanley Cup run the previous summer, it should be considered a minor miracle Colorado found itself in the thick of the Central Division race going into the final day of the regular season.
Somehow, Bednar figured out a way to make it work with a roster held together by super glue and duct tape.
Championships almost always buy goodwill. So, in a sense, the Avs have nothing to lose as they enter the playoffs as the betting favorites to emerge from the Western Conference.
And the man behind the bench should get a standing ovation for that.
Nuggets — B-
Give Nikola Jokic and the Nuggets this much: If anyone wants to accuse them of stat padding again, all they have to do is point to how they handled the final week of the regular season.
With their superstar center on the cusp of joining Russell Westbrook and Oscar Robertson as the only players in NBA history to average a triple-double in a season, the Nuggets opted against chasing the relatively small number of assists needed to get him there. They even went so far as to limit him to just 52 total minutes over his final two games.
While it’s admirable that Jokic and the team chose to focus solely on their championship goal, can we express just the tiniest bit of regret that they didn’t go for it?
Dinger tackler — F
We’re not here to cast aspersions at anyone for wanting to tackle Dinger.
While the Grading the Week staff may not condone someone entertaining such a bizarre fantasy, we can certainly understand it.
But to actually follow through with it, as one (presumably inebriated) fan did with a clumsy form tackle of the Rockies mascot Tuesday night atop the Colorado dugout? Well, that’s where you lose us.
Want more sports news? Sign up for the Sports Omelette to get all our analysis on Denver’s teams.
