Colorado Rockies morning after: Their 72nd loss of the season came much earlier in 2019

Saturday night’s loss to the St. Louis Cardinals was the Colorado Rockies 72nd loss of the season. It happened in Game 130 and on August 24. In 2018, it happened in Game 163 and on October 1.

The Colorado Rockies lost their third straight game against the St. Louis Cardinals on Saturday, which was also their fifth loss out of their last six games after they won four games  in a row, with one against the D’Backs and a sweep of the worst team in the NL, the Miami Marlins.

The loss also made it their 38th loss in their past 56 games, which is a .321 winning percentage.

Most importantly, though, the loss was their 72nd of the season. That is the same amount of losses that the Rockies had in the entire regular season last year.

While some of us here at Rox Pile projected that the team would regress (like me in my projections and my co-expert Kevin Henry was even booed at this past offseason’s SABR Town Hall in Denver for predicting that they would miss the playoffs), I don’t think anybody thought that the Rockies would be *this* bad.

Now that the Rockies would win 32 games to finish where they were last season, let’s all say it: they are not a good baseball team.

Why have the Rockies gone down the drain so much this season?

Simply put: pitching. Or the lack thereof.

After the Rockies loss on Saturday, their team ERA is 5.51, which is actually down from their high-water mark of the season of 5.60 from August 13-14. That 5.60 team ERA would be the worst number in franchise history with the exception of the disastrous 1999 season, a season that had the most runs scored in history up until that time due to steroids, two rounds of recent expansion (meaning a lack of pitching), and no humidor at Coors Field.

Even with the 5.51 ERA, that would be the worst team ERA for the Rockies since 2004, when the Rockies lost 94 games.

Take a look at the pitchers that those 2004 Rockies fielded.

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Overall for the Rockies, if the current trend of pitching continues, the 2019 Rockies would join the 1996, 1999, and 2004 Rockies as the only teams with this egregious of a team ERA.

The struggles of Kyle Freeland, Wade Davis, Bryan Shaw, and Antonio Senzatela, the struggles and injury of Tyler Anderson, inconsistency of German Marquez, and the sheer lack of depth in the Rockies pitching, let alone the franchise as a whole, has put the state of the Rockies and much of their players and staff, entering the offseason, at a crossroads.

Do they have the financial and trade power to address a bevy of issues in the offseason, especially after just extending Nolan Arenado for $260 million? Do they see resurgences from these pitchers like they saw from Jon Gray before his season ending injury last season? Or will the Rockies be one of the worst teams in the sport again in 2020, while the clock ticks on the free agency of Trevor Story, Jon Gray, and Scott Oberg?

Only time will tell as we hope to see the development of some younger players in the next five weeks of the season.

Antonio Senzatela will be recalled from Albuquerque for tomorrow’s start as the Rockies will hope to salvage the final game in the series before the Rockies head home to face the Atlanta Braves in a makeup game on Monday and a three game series with the reigning World Champion Boston Red Sox on Tuesday.