What's it like to be the worst team in baseball? ‘We have nothing to lose.'

Washington Post

20-06-2025

Playing Biñho while being treated for a stiff lower back is difficult.
Kyle Freeland, one of the longest-tenured members of the Colorado Rockies, learned that universal truth this week. A wrap delivering treatment to his injured trunk made it impossible for him to bend over, so his reach over the finger-flicking tabletop soccer game was limited. But major league clubhouses are no place for excuses, so he chuckled at himself as he did his best — reaching as far as he could, getting an assist from teammates when the ball rolled out of reach. One could say he was laughing to keep from crying, though he has been willing to cry at times this year, too.
'Keep believing in us,' Freeland said through tears on May 8, when the Rockies had won just six games and were offering little to stir faith they would ever win a seventh.
But leaning into hope for the Rockies is similarly challenging: They have never won a World Series. They have not had a winning season in seven years. The free agent they signed to help them reemerge, Kris Bryant, has played 170 games in four seasons and is not sure when he will play again.
They have struggled to develop pitching talent that can withstand Coors Field's unique atmosphere, but they have also struggled to develop hitting talent that can take full advantage of it. And promising young shortstop Ezequiel Tovar, who has led the Rockies in fWAR since the start of the 2023 season, has spent much of this year on the injured list, which certainly hasn't helped.
So they began this season with 13 wins in their first 70 games — fewest by any team since the 19th century — threatening to knock last year's Chicago White Sox off the pedestal of ultimate baseball futility.
'I think where we are, we just have to focus on each day,' Rockies center fielder Brenton Doyle said when asked whether he and his teammates ever dream about staging a season-long comeback for the ages.
'But the position we're in, we can play really free. We have nothing to lose.'
Perhaps there is something to this. Heck, their brutal start to the season already cost manager Bud Black his job, because when things are this bad, firing someone distracts from the reality that a long inert organization should probably fire just about everyone. It made them the butt of every leaguewide joke, forcing players to answer questions about chasing the all-time loss record no one wants to break.
And yet, when they rolled into Nationals Park this week for four games against another organization grappling with an identity crisis, they were not the ones who looked weighed down. They battered the Washington Nationals over three, really four games, losing the fourth only when Nationals slugger James Wood imposed his will.
They tied a franchise record with seven home runs in a single game in Tuesday's 10-6 win. And while they flashed some Bad News Bears here and there — a dropped flyball in that 10-6 drubbing, for example — they looked more like a typical young, losing team than one mired in generational hopelessness. Relative to the Nationals, they looked lively and confident, which is precisely what interim manager and Rockies lifer Warren Schaeffer said he hoped they would become under his watch.
'I want guys to get after it every day, to play with excitement, to play with joy and to play with freedom,' said Schaeffer, a 40-year-old who could easily be mistaken for an active player. 'Usually, things come from that that are good.'
Recently, quietly, his Rockies (17-58) have improved. They have won as many games already in June (eight) as they did in April and May combined. And get this: Since June 1, no team in baseball has a higher OPS than the Rockies, despite the fact that most of their June games have come away from their hitter-friendly home.
'We've been having some pretty good results. Things definitely feel like they've been turning around compared to the start of the season,' said Doyle, an elite defender who is struggling offensively this year. 'It's definitely going to be fun to build off that.'
The surge will certainly not stop another year of summer speculation that the Rockies will offload third baseman Ryan McMahon, an elite defender who is under contract through the 2027 season, at the trade deadline. It certainly will not end calls to owner Dick Monfort from fans seeking comprehensive change in an organization widely considered one of the sport's most resistant to the analytics revolution.
Obviously, the Rockies will need more than a good week in Washington to ensure they do not contend with last year's 41-121 White Sox for the worst regular season record in history. As of Friday, their .227 winning percentage has them on pace for just fewer than 37 wins. Players bear some responsibility, of course. But spending any time around the Rockies gives the distinct feeling that those in the clubhouse are doing what they can.
Because it is not easy to win Major League Baseball games while playing for an organization that struggles to develop, acquire and retain good players, one whose only World Series appearance came when several of the current starters were still in elementary school. And lately, the Rockies are finding a way to win a few games anyway.