Sunday was a bizarre day at Coors Field, even by Rockies standards.
The club’s decision to fire manager Bud Black was no surprise. It was like a thunderstorm building over the Rockies. Anyone paying attention could see it coming. Big-league managers don’t survive 7-33 starts after back-to-back 100-loss seasons.
Black surely saw it coming, too, though he never said so publicly. He remained classy, upbeat and professional until the end.
“We never saw a change from him,” veteran third baseman Ryan McMahon said.
But the timing of the Rockies’ decision was awkward. And the explanation provided by owner Dick Monfort made Black, if not the scapegoat, then certainly the public fall guy for a dysfunctional franchise that’s on pace to lose more games than any team in big-league history.
Let’s begin with the ill-timed announcement.
About 15 minutes after the Rockies beat the Padres, 9-3, to snap their third eight-game losing streak of the season, the club announced that it had fired Black and bench coach Mike Redmond. Considering that Colorado had lost 21-0 to the Padres on Saturday night, firing Black on Sunday morning seemed more sensible.
But it was weird. General manager Bill Schmidt had told The Denver Post on Saturday that the club wasn’t ready to fire Black.
“I think our guys are still playing hard, and that’s what I look at,” Schmidt said at the time. “Guys are working hard every day, they come with energy, for the most part. I don’t think we are (at that point of firing Black). Guys still believe in what we are doing and where we are headed. We are all frustrated.”
Less than 24 hours later, Black was gone.
Schmidt said the excruciating 21-0 loss was not the breaking point, yet he knew Sunday morning that Black was done. So why did the Rockies wait until after one of the club’s few feel-good moments of the season to fire their manager?
“Trying to get everything in place this morning was gonna rush it,” Schmidt explained, noting that the Rockies were about to start a six-game road trip in Texas on Monday. “So, I made the decision we’d do it post-game, win or lose.
“So, I know it took a little air out of winning the game, but I think the right thing … you don’t put somebody on a plane and do it in Texas; you do it here. So, that’s why we made the decision.”
Several Rockies players, including McMahon and right-hander German Marquez, who had pitched Colorado to a rare win, found the timing odd, to say the least.
“Yeah, I’ll be honest, that kind of sucked,” McMahon said. “But it is what it is, man. This is a business at the end of the day. They have to make hard decisions like this.
“I guarantee if you ask anybody in the front office, they probably didn’t want to do this, but they felt like it was necessary.”
It was left to Schmidt, not Monfort, to tell the players and staff that Black was fired. In his written statement, Monfort said: “Our play so far this season, especially coming off the last two seasons, has been unacceptable. Our fans deserve better, and we are capable of better. While we all share responsibility in how this season has played out, these changes are necessary.”
Monfort is the ultimate decision-maker at 20th and Blake, but he has not met with media members to field questions about his decisions. And his biggest in recent years was to give Kris Bryant a seven-year, $182 million contract before the 2022 season.
Bryant, who was transferred to the 60-day injured list on Sunday because of his chronically angry lower back, might not play again this season. He has played just 170 games across his four seasons in Colorado, with only 17 homers and a minus-1.6 total WAR. He’s making $27 million this season. The Rockies could have brought in two solid players for that kind of money, and then Black wouldn’t have had to field a Quadruple-A team this season.
Black, never one to throw his players under the media bus, always stood up for Bryant. But many in the organization consider Bryant’s contract an albatross, even if they won’t say it on the record.
“Sometimes the manager takes the fall, and it sucks because we all love Buddy,” Bryant told The Post’s Sean Keeler on Sunday. “I just appreciate how he’s handled all of my problems with grace and understanding. That’s all you can really ask for from a manager. He doesn’t swing the bat or throw the ball, right? And he can only do so much.”
McMahon said the players have to put a lot of the blame on their shoulders.
“You know, we feel like we let Buddy down a little bit,” he said. “I’ve already had a couple of conversations with guys, you know, just feeling down in the dumps, feeling like, you know, we definitely played a part in this happening.
“But talking to Red and Buddy, they both said, ‘Don’t put that on your shoulders.’ But you can’t help it.”
The final word on Black’s final day with the Rockies came from Dodgers manager Dave Roberts. He and Black are close friends and live a few blocks away from each other near San Diego. Roberts was on Black’s staff when Black managed in San Diego and considers him a mentor.
“I don’t think (Hall of Famer) Casey Stengel could change the outcome of that ballclub, and that’s not the manager’s fault,” Roberts told reporters Sunday. “But obviously, they felt they needed a change in voice or direction. But for me, there aren’t many people who are better than Buddy Black. So, yeah, that’s very disappointing. It is certainly not his doing.”
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