NOW We Finally Have Some Pitching

The season was almost over when I finally pulled the trigger, but I finally ordered some 2018 Topps Now cards. Sadly, their season was over by the time they arrived, even though I ordered them when the Rockies were on fire and looking great for another Postseason run. It just goes to show you how quickly your fortunes can change in this sport.

2018 Topps Now #791 German Marquez /194

Rockies starter German Marquez pitched a few high-profile games toward the end of the 2018 season on their way to their second straight Wild Card spot. More on that later, but the Rockies beat up on the Phillies in a 14-0 win on September 26th, 2018, the third game of a four-game set that the Rockies swept. I attended the first one of that series, the final contest I was able to visit during the regular season. It was a win, but I chose to get the Topps Now card from Wednesday's game, thanks to German Marquez tying a modern-era Major League record. That makes it the second Marquez Topps Now card in my collection.

Marquez struck out eight straight batters to begin the game, tying a record set by Jim Deshaies in 1986 and tied by Jacob DeGrom in 2012, which we know thanks to the helpful paragraph on the card back. That card back has some faint rainbow-colored Topps logos, basically a series of watermarks. What it doesn't tell us is that during this early-innings streak, German Marquez passed Ubaldo Jimenez to become the Rockies' single-season strikeout leader, finishing the year with 230.

It was an impressive performance, and even though a couple batters got on base to end the streak at eight, Marquez struck out another batter to end the third inning, meaning he got his first nine outs via the strikeout. And as soon as it happened, I knew exactly which card to pair it with, assuming Topps released a NOW card for the feat.

1987 Topps #2 Jim Deshaies RB

Long before Topps NOW, Topps opened their annual sets with a subset of Record Breaker cards, and this one of Jim Deshaies, the first player to set the modern record of eight strikeouts to start a game, is a card that's been in my collection since the very beginning. This 1987 Topps card has been replaced over the years, but it's one of the most familiar cards I own. It might have even been at the very top of the once-small stack that comprised my entire collection, since even back then I was alphabetizing cards by team. None of the 1987 Angels cards jump out at me, so this is pretty much Side 1, Track 1 of my baseball card collection.

Despite this being more or less my first-ever baseball card, it still has things to teach me. I keep saying that this 8-strikeout opener is a "modern" record, because according to Deshaies' card back, there was a game way back in 1884 where Hall-of-Famer Mickey Welch started a game with nine Ks.

The strikeout story doesn't end there, because in his very next start during the NL Tiebreaker game against the Dodgers, Marquez tied another mark, recording four strikeouts in one inning. Many pitchers have reached that catcher-assisted record, this time thanks to a passed ball from Tony Wolters. It ended up being extremely costly, because instead of Max Muncy sitting in the dugout as the first out, he remained on first base after the third strikeout, at which point Cody Bellinger hit a home run to lead the the Dodgers to a sixth straight division title.

That set up a Wild Card matchup between the Rockies and Cubs at Wrigley Field, and let's just say Rockies managed to earn another Topps NOW card, despite 13 innings of little offense and terrible announcing from ESPN.

2018 Topps Now #834 Colorado Rockies /360

I covered the results of the NL Wild Card game in my previous post, which ended up being the only Rockies win of the postseason. Lots of Rockies are visible on this team card, including Nolan Arenado, Scott Oberg, Garrett Hampson, and the backup catcher with the game-winning hit, Tony Wolters. Topps was sure to mention that the Rockies played games in three time zones in three days, something that had to take a toll on the team. Sunday was in Denver, Monday was in L.A., and Tuesday was in Chicago.

None of that would be possible without air travel, which reminds me of an interesting article I read recently on the Washington Nationals and all the behind-the-scenes logistics management that it takes to field a Major League team.

German Marquez would take the mound one final time in 2018, starting NLDS Game 3 at home against the Brewers. I had the good fortune to snag four seats in the upper deck, two rows from the top. It was cold, cloudy, and rainy, and the offense that was on display during the final week of the regular season was nowhere to be found. Go figure, the team finally has some solid pitching, and the bats shut down.

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The playoff colors are flying at Coors Field! Let’s get a win in NLDS game 3! #nlds #rockies #postseason #ilovecoorsfield #baseball

A post shared by AdamK (@adamk0310) on Oct 7, 2018 at 12:13pm PDT

It was just the tenth postseason game ever played at Coors Field, and I've been to two of them. I'd really love to see these banners around the ballpark more frequently, but we'll have to wait until next year. The Brewers look great, and I can't help but wonder how this postseason would look if the Rockies had managed to win the division for the first time ever. They would have hosted the Braves for a rematch of the 1995 NLDS, and the Braves did almost as badly in this year's NLDS as the Rockies did. If the Rockies had been able to scratch out just one more win this year, things might be very different.