Careful, we've seen this before from the Colorado Rockies

Hey, I understand.

There's a lot to be excited about when it comes to your Colorado Rockies.

As of this morning, they're a full six games above .500 and in early contention in what looks to be a formidable NL West. Troy Tulowitzki is the reigning NL Player of the Month, Charlie Blackmon is one MLB's top come-ot-of-nowhere surprises and Justin Morneau and Jordan Lyles look like absolute steals of off-season additions.

But let's not get carried away.

It's still early, and the "it's a marathon, not a sprint" phrase gets thrown around an awful lot in spring MLB conversations, probably because there's a whole lot of truth to it.

Besides, we've seen this before from the Rocks.

Prior to this season's 16-12 April, the Rockies have emerged from the regular season's first month with a winning record seven times in their first 21 seasons.

But only once in those seven years has that hot start translated into a postseason finish. That came in the labor unrest-shortened 1995 campaign when the Boys in Purple finished April 4-1 en route to a 77-67 finish and a wild-card berth.

In fact, those seven above-.500 Aprils have only resulted in two above.-500 season finishes, with the last one coming a full 17 years ago in '97, when the Rockies started 17-7 and wound up 83-79.

Since then, Colorado's last five winning Aprils in 2001 (13-11), '03 (15-12), '06 (15-10), '11 (17-8) and '13 (16-11) have resulted in nary a winning season and, in fact, the club's final records in those campaigns was a combined 70 games under .500.

Flipping things around, the Rockies have had seven winning seasons in their history, but only two of those years -- the aforementioned '95 and '97 campaigns -- began with a winning record in April.

In the franchise's last two playoff seasons, '07 and '09, they got off to 8-12 and 10-16 starts, respectively, in April.

But what about the Rockies' torrid start at the plate, you ask? That's not likely to cool off as the season and weather heats up, especially with 2013 NL batting champ Michael Cuddyer having been sidelined and Carlos Gonzalez having been slumping for most of the early part of the season.

Hey, it wouldn't be a shock to see the Rocks stay atop the National League's offensive leaderboards, but, again, it's nothing new.

In their first 21 seasons, the Rockies have led the NL in batting average 11 times, but those 11 seasons have corresponded with only two postseason berths and five winning seasons.

Colorado also has led the NL in runs scored in six seasons, but only one of those years ('95) concluded in the postseason.
All that in mind, we'll label the Rocks' 2014 start encouraging, but it's far from unique or telling by any means.