The Colorado Rockies could lose every game for the rest of the season and still finish 14 games better than last season. The bad news? If that happens, they will finish with 105 losses.
On Tuesday, the Rockies clinched their fourth straight season with 100 or more losses with their 7-2 defeat against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Coors Field. They are the first team since the expansion New York Mets from 1962-65 to achieve the dubious feat and just the fifth to do it overall.
So while they will improve by at least 14 games, and maybe more if they finish strong, the season will go down in the books as another disappointing one. First-year manager Warren Schaeffer said the team has to learn from the experience.
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"You learn your hardest lessons in difficulty in life," said Warren Schaeffer, in his first season as Colorado's full-time manager.
"This is not easy. Last year, we talked about it at the end of the year, how we want to feel this and never feel it again and remember it and hold on to it. The guys have done that. We've just lost 100 again. There are a ton of lessons to learn from it. If we don't learn these lessons from these games this year, we won't get better."
The moribund Rockies have struggled mightily for over a decade and a half now. They have made the postseason just twice since 2010, and have not won a postseason series since reaching the World Series in 2007.
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The Rockies' pitching staff has once again been a major problem, as their team ERA of 5.57 is the highest in baseball. Colorado has finished with the highest team ERA every season since 2022, and if it does so again this year, it will become only the third club since 1913 to have the worst ERA in the majors in five consecutive seasons.
Despite the rough season, the Rockies have a couple of promising pieces for the future.
Rookie first baseman TJ Rumfield entered Tuesday fifth in the National League with a .300 batting average and led all qualified rookies in batting average and on-base percentage. Hunter Goodman, Colorado's 26-year-old catcher, was an All-Star for a second consecutive season and is one home run shy of becoming the first Rockies player with 40 homers in a season since 2019.
Veteran pitcher Kyle Freeland, who has been with the team for 10 seasons, said the team is heading in the right direction.
"I think everything we're doing inside this clubhouse - coaches, players, front office, all staff - has been doing an incredible job to make sure that this team and this org is heading in the direction that is winning," Freeland said. "You see it."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
