Colorado Rockies: The nightmare stretches of seasons past

When the Colorado Rockies fell quietly to the Washington Nationals 2-0 on July 24, the 2019 team had tied the worst 19-game stretch in franchise history.

The Rockies were 3-16 since June 30 and had plummeted from a lead in the Wild Card race to the back of the pack of NL playoff contenders. It was an atrocious stretch that might sabotage this team’s 2019 Rocktober dreams.

But how does this bad run of baseball rank among the franchise’s worst? Find an uncomfortable seat and let’s go on a nightmare tour of the Rockies’ most appalling, miserable and demoralizing stretches of seasons past.

Stretch: 1993, May 5 – May 30

Record: 4-21; went from 10-15 to 14-36

The Rockies had a respectable start for an expansion team, but Colorado fell apart spectacularly in the month of May 1993.

Maybe the critics were right and baseball was not meant to be in the Mile High City, at least for the sake of the poor Colorado pitching staff. In the month of May, the Rockies sported a 7.03 ERA – worst in the league by a large margin – while giving up 202 earned runs and 38 home runs.

In six May starts, Butch Henry posted a 9.09 ERA, allowing 32 earned runs in 31.2 innings. On May 28, Henry gave up nine runs and two homers in less than four innings in an eventual 15-9 loss to the Phillies.

Following Henry’s disastrous start, the Rockies lost 6-0 and 18-1 to the Phillies before ending the month with a victory over the Pirates. But the damage was done.

Entering May, the Rockies had a team ERA of 4.78 and by the end of the month, the team’s ERA was 6.07.

Henry was pitching for the Montreal Expos by the end of July as he was traded for pitcher Kent Bottenfield, who also didn’t pitch well in his short tenure in a Rockies uniform (6.04 ERA in 101 1/3 innings before he was released in 1994).

The team endured an all-time franchise-worst losing streak of 13 from July 25 – Aug. 6, but by that point the season was already done and dusted.

Stretch: 1997, July 1 – July 19

Record: 1-15, went from 43-39 to 44-54

By the end of June 1997, the Rockies were contending for the team’s second playoff appearance. But like in 2019, a disastrous July sent this team hurtling toward the bottom of the standings. And it was not the pitching this time – the bats were the culprit, as the team scored three runs or less nine times during the 16-game tailspin.

Yet when the bats were firing, the pitching suddenly let the Rockies down. On July 13, Colorado lost 13-11 to the Padres when Curt Leskanic and Jeff McCurry combined to give up five runs in the top of the ninth. The next night, the Rockies lost 14-12 in extra innings to the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Stretch: 2008, May 10 – June 2

Record: 5-17, went from 15-21 to 20-38

Coming off the franchise’s only World Series appearance, the Rockies stumbled out of the gate, but were still in contention in early May. Then the squad sunk to 18 games below .500 after enduring the franchise’s longest road losing streak to date.

The streak started with two losses to the Padres, then a three-game sweep at the hands of the Arizona Diamondbacks. Colorado recovered with a 5-4 homestand, but the next road trip started in embarrassing fashion with a 20-5 loss to the Phillies. The game was tied 4-4 after three innings, but the Phillies jumped on Jorge De La Rosa, Jason Grilli and Josh Newman for six runs in both the fourth and sixth innings.

(It was Newman’s last appearance for the Rockies, and he had four appearances for the Kansas City Royals in August before his career was over.)

The Phillies swept the Rockies in three games and the Chicago Cubs swept them in four. On May 30 the streak was bound to end, as Colorado led Chicago 9-1 in the sixth, but starting pitcher Aaron Cook gave it all away, allowing three home runs and seven runs in the sixth and seventh innings. Manny Corpas came in and gave up a single, two-run double and two-run home run before getting replaced. That gave the Cubs a 10-9 lead, which would hold as the final score.

Colorado won the second game of its next series, 3-0 in Los Angeles over the Dodgers, to stop the hellish road losing streak at 13 games.

Stretch: 2010, Sept 19 – Oct 3

Record: 1-13; record from 82-66 to 83-79

There may technically be worse stretches in franchise history, yet few have been as agonizing as the run of games that ended the 2010 season. On Sept. 18 (after a 12-2 blowout victory over the Dodgers), Colorado was just one game behind the Padres in the NL West and 2.5 games behind Atlanta for the Wild Card spot. When the season wrapped up, Colorado was nine games behind the San Francisco Giants and eight games back for the Wild Card spot.

The stretch started, naturally, with a heartbreaker at Dodger Stadium. Los Angeles recovered from a 6-1 deficit and scored in the ninth to push the game into extra innings, then in the 11th inning, A.J. Ellis hit a RBI single off Manny Delcarman to give the Dodgers a 7-6 win.

Sure, there were poor pitching performances, but it was the offense that sent the Rockies plummeting out of contention. The team slashed a truly horrific .203/.279/.331 over the final 14 games. The pitching gave up 68 earned runs and 78 runs total, but the offense could only manage to drive in 49 (or 3.5 runs per game).

Only Dexter Fowler (.333/.373/.563 slash line) was hitting well down the stretch – in fact the only player to have a wRC+ over 100. Troy Tulowitzki had a .212 batting average. Chris Iannetta managed just three singles in 32 plate appearances. Given that the Rockies lost eight games in this stretch by two runs or less, a little more offensive punch might have carried this team to the playoffs.

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Stretch: 2014, May 11 – June 10

Record: 7-22, went from 22-14 to 29-36

The 2014 Rockies started hot while star-to-be Nolan Arenado began the season on a tear, hitting in 28 consecutive games from April 9 to May 8. Meanwhile, Troy Tulowitzki batted .364 with seven home runs in April to earn NL Player of the Month honors.

But from May 11 through June 10, the Rockies pitching staff posted a 5.79 ERA, the worst in baseball. The starters were 5.99, and despite some solid outings from De La Rosa (2.86 ERA in five starts), it was a woeful stretch for Juan Nicasio and Franklin Morales. Morales was relieved of his starting duties after getting lit up in a 7-6 loss to the Indians on May 31 (The winning pitcher in that game? Bryan Shaw.).

Reliever Rex Brothers was especially poor in relief during this period. With the Rockies up 8-7 against the Diamondbacks on June 4, Brothers gave up five runs without recording an out in the top of the eighth. The Rockies would give up six more for a wretched 16-8 loss.

The season was effectively over by that point. Tulowitzki suffered a season-ending hip injury in late July and Carlos Gonzalez shut it down in early August.

Yet brighter days were ahead – fans would just have to wait a few years.