Why another 100-loss season isn’t deterring fans of the Colorado Rockies

DENVER – There’s nothing positive about losing 100 games four years in a row. 

For a franchise that once prided itself on having never reached that salacious century mark for losses despite having never won their division since entering the league, things continue to stay rock bottom for the Colorado Rockies. 

Yet the more than two million fans who have shown up to Coors Field this season and the 22,511 who were in the building for the final home game of the 2026 slate still have hope that better days are ahead.

“Thank you for supporting us. Thank you for staying with us through difficult times and the climb upwards,” manager Warren Schaeffer said to fans before the first pitch. “I know the players are extremely thankful, and it’s great to come to work together in front of these fans every day, knowing that they appreciate us and support us. (You’re) with us in the down times, and will be with us in the good times when they come.”

Even when Colorado trailed 6-0 before the defense recorded their first out, the fans on hand gave a supportive applause for the 6-4-3 double play that followed. After a six-run first inning and a 10-0 score after the top of the fourth, few, if any, abandoned their seat for the exit.

Their dedication was nearly rewarded when the Rockies scored four times in the seventh and twice in the eighth. Had a 382-ft fly ball off the bat of Kyle Karros had a little more backspin, we would have had a one-run ballgame.

Alas, the baseball gods had other things in mind and Colorado lost for the 102nd time this year.

There’s potential for the team to finish with the second-most losses in club history as they travel to the South Side. Three games against a Chicago White Sox squad looking to win the American League Central very well may leave the damage at 105 losses. 

However, there’s a belief within the organization that better days are ahead. Sure, glimpses of more prosperous times have been witnessed this season.

It began last offseason when team ownership went outside the organization for the first time since 1999 for new leadership and new ideas. President of Baseball Operations Paul DePodesta, a 20-year veteran of various MLB front offices, and general manager Josh Byrnes, formerly of the Los Angeles Dodgers, will not sugarcoat the disappointment of another season. Still, their fingerprint upon the double-digit improvement in wins has been notable.

Some of that progress could be seen on the field Thursday during the 12-8 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks. Jake McCarthy, acquired this past offseason in a trade with those same Dbacks, brought the first genuine cheer from the faithful with a leadoff single. 

Entering the day sixth in the NL with a .295 batting average, the 29-year-old outfielder has his best campaign as a big leaguer. His 13 triples will fall just shy of the franchise high of 15 set by Dexter Fowler in 2011. Under club control for two more seasons, McCarthy is precisely the player the Rockies want to build around.

“I think we’ve seen offensively what does work in this ballpark and it’s what we’ve thought for a while — at least what I’ve thought for a while about putting the ball in play (and with) speed. I think Jake embodies what works in this ballpark big time.”

TJ Rumfield, just days from setting a club record for a rookie with a 25-game on-base streak, reached base three times with a walk, single and double Thursday afternoon. Another trade acquisition, Rumfield has made his case becoming only the second Rockie to win the NL Rookie of the Year Award. 

With traditional counting stats and slash lines comparable or better than Todd Helton in 1998, it will be hard for Rumfield to match Helton’s second-place finish in a crowded rookie field for the Senior Circuit. Whether or not Rumfield follows in the same path as Helton to mark his own course for Cooperstown remains to be seen, but five more years in purple pinstripes has many fans hopeful for what comes next.

There’s also the two-time All-Star Hunter Goodman providing optimism. After half a decade of players putting together a breakout season only to fail on repeating those successes, Goodman has planted himself as a top-tier talent for a franchise known for producing its fair share of sluggers.

Goodman may not have gifted fans a souvenir home run ball – an RBI-single will have to suffice – but three more games in Chicago on the road could get him to 40 homers, becoming the ninth player to reach the mark with Colorado. A player whose power is even more prodigious away from the hitter-friendly confines of Coors Field, Goodman will need to extend his MLB-leading 23 road homers in order to reach no. 40.

The Pitching Problem Persists

For all those successes on offense, there’s the pitching side of things where Colorado is once again dead last in earned run average. Even if this organization can put together the second iteration of the Blake Street Bombers, it won’t mean a lot to score 10 runs every game if the pitching staff gives up 11.

When the starting pitcher is charged with 10 runs, as was the case with Tanner Gordon against Arizona, there’s even less of a chance of winning.

“We gotta take more runs off the board for the other team and score more runs,” Schaeffer said post-game. “There’s a lot of things that go into that, and there’s gonna be an off season full of planning on how to do that. But that’s the name of the game.”

There was brief success from Chase Dollander (3.89 ERA) over his three starts before elbow surgery ended his season prematurely. Brennan Bernardino (2.89 ERA), yet another player that came over via trade in the offseason, posted 19 consecutive scoreless outings at Coors Field, a record-tying total.  He’s the only pitcher on the staff with a sub-3.00 ERA with more than seven innings pitched.  

As for the starting rotation for the 2027 team? That’s one major mystery.

“Paul’s brilliant, and so is JB, and they both know baseball,” Schaeffer said of his bosses in the front office.. “What we’ve been doing just hasn’t been working. So we need to get creative and move forward.”

The signings of three veterans during the offseason – Tomoyuki Sugano, Jose Quintana and Michael Lorenzen — created confidence for an organization that has traditionally struggled to bring in free agent pitchers. But their combined 6.01 ERA in 53 starts makes it dubious for many that progress is being made. 

“We brought in Michael Lorenzen for all the right reasons, a veteran pitcher that’s strong, that can withstand a season, specifically at altitude with his body. He’s got six pitches that Paul was talking about for a long time,” Schaeffer said. “It just didn’t work out well.”

With Kyle Freeland a free agent at season’s end, next year’s rotation is a bigger series of question marks than ever before in their 33 years as an organization, it’s unclear how they address this pressing need.

Schaeffer, however, is optimistic.

“Mason Adams was unbelievable (Wednesday) night. He’s a huge part of the future. (Tanner Gordon) has been good for us in spurts. Gabriel Hughes has a bright future, but I do think that these guys fully come into what they can become. (Ryan) Feltner is another one.”

The Potential

Connor Norby came to Colorado in a trade with the Miami Marlins at the deadline for reliever Victor Vodnik. His first stint in the Pacific Coast League was brief. Since his promotion to the big leagues on Aug. 10, the 26-year-old infielder has been one of bright spots over these final six weeks.

Slashing .298/.381/.455 with 19 runs, three home runs, 17 RBI, 15 walks and four stolen bases since joining the Rockies, Norby has been batting second for Schaeffer throughout much of the final month. A pair of hits furthered the belief he’ll be back in 2027 with a prominent role. 

Other jolts on offense contributed to the failed comeback on Thursday.

Zac Veen doubled and homered, looking more like the player Baseball America announced as the Triple-A Player of the Year.

The tandem of 24-year-olds each homered during a cat and mouse game of “Anything you can do, I can do better.” 

First it was Kyle Karros who brought fans to their feet with his 13th home run of the season, his second hit of the game. Cole Carrigg, who finished with three base hits, responded in kind with his 11th homer of the year.

Carrigg helped produced some good on the final homestand of the season. He finished the homestand going 17-for-43 with five runs, five extra-base hits and 12 RBI. It was the third time a Rockies rookie recorded at least 17 hits during a homestand and the fifth time a homestand resulted in at least eight losses.

Though the crowd never got a chance to see the Rockies make the remarkable comeback after trailing 11-1, they got their money’s worth. Along with the baseball cathedral on the corner of 20th & Blake, it’s one reason they often come back despite the standings suggesting they stay home.

Norby said he felt the love from fans as soon as he came to Colorado. He was blown away by support on his first weekend homestand in Denver when nearly 40,000 showed up on Saturday night for a game against the small market Cleveland Guardians

“This is crazy,” Norby explained. “I don’t want to say I’m not used to it. (In) Baltimore we’d get some big crowds. (In) Miami, we had some big crowds from time to time, but the fans here — they’re very passionate. They’re loyal, and they know our record. We know our record, and they still show out every night, and you feel their support.”

The Walk

The tradition of Rockies players, coaches and team personnel walking the ballpark to greet fans and give thanks is a tradition that dates back to the club’s first season in 1993. Down the road at the original Mile High Stadium, inaugural manager Don Baylor led the charge with a club that lost 95 games. 

The goal set by Baylor at the club’s original spring training facility at Hi Corbett Field in Tucson, Arizona was simple: avoid losing 100 games. While many players and coaches had yet to learn one another’s names as every one had played elsewhere the previous year, the expansion franchise managed to fulfill their goal.

Stopping this streak of 100-loss seasons was the goal for 2026. After a failed first attempt by this new front office, the goal will be the same with even more weight attached to it: avoid becoming only the second team in over 150 years of the Majors to lose 100 games in five consecutive campaigns.

No team has lost more games since the start of the 2023 season than Colorado. Despite those 424 losses, the Rockies are ranked 17th in home attendance. Nearly 10 million fans have shown up to support the Denver nine during that time of futility. 

“I understand them. I love the passion. They’re kind of the same way (as me),” Carrigg said post-game. “Personally, I’m going to bust my butt for this team, for the fans, and for the city of Denver as hard as I can every night. We got to be better. We’re going to do what it takes for sure.”

The Message

The Rockies really want fans to believe better days ahead in spite of another incredibly disappointing year. 

“When you just look at the raw number, you’re just going to look at 100 losses and say, ‘Oh, well, they lost 100 games. They’re not very good,’ explained Freeland. “When you start digging more and more, you see what our offense has done for the greater part of the season really, they’ve been an incredible offense in the league.”

The pitching, on the other hand, is what it is. The ball flies and even when it doesn’t quite as much, the oversized outfield turns an out into a base hit and extends a rally beyond belief.

Freeland has seen the changes on the pitching side too, even if the results haven’t come.

“The organization is taking the correct steps, and I think we’ve seen that this season with our front office, which with some of the moves we made, some of the signings we’ve made, guys we’ve brought up. You can definitely tell there’s a formula that they’re working with, and it’s a correct formula,” Freeland said. “They need to keep on going and stay the course. (I) definitely feel that the steps are being taken in the right direction.”

The offseason will be another unique beast with a lockout upending any hope for normal Hot Stove League activities. Regardless of how much time Colorado and the rest of the 30 clubs in MLB will have to improve their roster through trades and free agent signings, the Rockies will have a chance to do something different again in hopes the next pivot turns them around.

Even if it doesn’t, there will still be two million fans keeping faith as they walk through the turnstill at Coors Field.