Monday Morning Shortstop: WE WANT TACOS!

Mmmmm, taco.

“Hey. Hey. I got your tacos right here,” – Carlos Gonzalez.

That was a declaration Carlos Gonzalez eloquently claimed in a Taco Bell commercial, possibly one of the greatest local advertisements of all time. In the ad, fans in a Taco Bell are screaming “WE WANT TACOS!” That’s when Cargo declares, with a plate of four delicious tacos, that he has our tacos right here.

Gonzalez is of course referring to the symbiotic relationship that binds the Rockies offensive success to Taco Bell’s desire to sell tacos at a discounted rate. If the Rockies score 7 or more runs in any given game, you can go to Taco Bell from 4 – 6 pm the next day and get four tacos for a dollar, with the purchase of a large drink. Killer deal. It’s the epitome of a win-win situation, although some people’s stomach’s might disagree.

The Rox usually win when they score 7 or more runs.  And it means taco lovers then win the next day, celebrating the Rockies offensive prowess by mauling cheap grub. Everybody is happy, except for the poor Taco Bell employees who have to deal with the swarms of cheap taco connoisseurs who flood participating locations when the Rockies get the job done. I actually know a guy who used to work at a Taco Bell drive thru, and he dreaded the days when the taco deal was in effect. He would tell me horror stories of drive thru lines getting 20 cars deep. Society loves tacos, especially when they are cheap.

Unfortunately, this season, Cargo and his cohorts do not “have our tacos right here.” There have not been many happy days of jam-packed Taco Bell drive-thrus.

After watching the Rockies drop their 16th Sunday game in a row, I thought to myself, “I could have got tacos today from 4-6 pm, thanks to the 15 run offensive outburst from Saturday’s contest. But shoot, I can’t get tacos tomorrow, because the Rockies offense went dormant once again.

There have been too many dormant nights this season, thus resulting in widespread cheap taco famine. The Rockies cheap taco ratio has reached a catastrophic low.  Out of 115 games this season, the Rockies have reached the Taco Threshold only 26 times.  That’s a 26:89 Taco: No Taco ratio. Or in other words, the Rockies surpass the Taco Threshold only 22 percent of games played.  That means Rockies fans experience Taco Time once every five games, or pretty much once a week.   That’s almost as disappointing as the meat that Taco Bell uses for their tacos.

At my core, I am a Chipotle fan. I’m not gonna lie. Taco Bell doesn’t really float my boat. But that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate it when the Rockies score 7-plus runs.  I’ll even indulge every now and then in four soft tacos (with no lettuce and a Dr. Pepper) for the sole fact of supporting the Rockies.

But I haven’t made many visits to Taco Bell this season, because the Rockies are averaging 4.5 runs a game. That’s actually pretty good from a baseball standpoint, but it is awful from a taco standpoint. And that stat is even exaggerated due to the fact that when the Rockies score runs, they do it in bunches. For instance, the Rockies blew up for 15 runs on Saturday, treating the fans to tacos on Sunday. But before then, we were submerged in a taco drought that lasted 7 days.  And before that, a 9-day taco drought took place.

Taco droughts are closely associated with losing skids, and that is reflected in the Rockies record.  At 53-62, the Rockies are nine games below .500. That is the furthest they have been below .500 all season.

In the more recent Taco Bell commercial, also possibly one of the greatest local advertisements of all time, Cargo is warming up in the on deck circle, and the fans are chanting, “WE WANT TACOS! Cargo acknowledges the fans’ request, clicks the donut off the bat, approaches the batter’s box, and says,

“Si. No Problema.”

Well, turns out Cargo might have been fibbing, because scoring runs has been a “grande problema” for the Rockies at times, and Colorado Rockies and taco fans alike have been suffering the consequences.

“WE WANT TACOS!”, and Rockies fans are not getting what they want.

Contact the writer, Zach Cohn, at zscohn@gmail.com.