With every game, the Colorado Rockies’ season seems to be getting worse.
Now at 6-33, they have endured the worst start to the season since the Baltimore Orioles in 1988. Before that, you must go back to before baseball’s modern era, back to the 1884 Kansas City Cowboys and 1876 Cincinnati Reds, to find another team with such a bad record at this point in the season.
And on Saturday, they had another historically bad night, succumbing to a 21-0 loss against the San Diego Padres at Coors Field.
It was the Rockies’ worst ever shutout loss, the Padres’ largest ever margin of victory and just one run shy of the largest shutout victory in the league since at least 1900.
Padres’ pitcher Stephen Kolek made history too on just his second-ever MLB start, equaling the record set by Red Ruffing in 1939 and Ed Siever in 1901 for the largest individual shutout.
“I’m actually feeling pretty good right now,” Kolek said afterward, as his teammates dumped a cooler of water on him in celebration. “Anything like this is amazing, I’m just grateful.”
And it could have been even worse for the Rockies. At the top of the sixth inning, the Padres already had a 20-0 lead and were on course to challenge both the MLB record for runs in a game (30) and hits (33). As it was, San Diego finished with 21 runs and 24 hits.
“You feel for a lot of people, right?” Rockies general manager Bill Schmidt told reporters even before his franchise’s loss on Saturday, per MLB.com. “Because there are a lot of people that care. You keep trying to grind through it. That’s all you can do.
“I know we’re better than we’ve played. We’re not good right now. We’re going to have to battle through it and come out on the other side.”
The Rockies have been hobbled by injuries to key players like 2024 Gold Glove shortstop Ezequiel Tovar and former NL MVP Kris Bryant.
“We’ve got to get guys back. That’s the big thing. Try to withstand the storm,” Schmidt added.
Their losses this season have been so lopsided that they have allowed 134 more runs than they’ve scored, 65 worse than the next closest team in MLB.
The Rockies’ struggles come after the Chicago White Sox lost 121 games last season, setting the unwanted record of the most losses in a single season in baseball’s modern era. At the moment, the Rockies are on track to surpass even that tally though, of course, there is still a long way to go.
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