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The worst 81-game starts in MLB history
We're midway through the MLB season, and the Rockies are 18-63, making them just the fifth team in AL/NL history to win fewer than 19 of their first 81 games — and the first in 121 years.
2025 Colorado Rockies (18-63 through 81 games)
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This team seems stuck in an endless rebuild, last finishing above .500 in 2018. And with MLB's 18th-ranked farm system, and few if any veterans worth trading for prospects at the deadline, there isn't much hope of them getting better anytime soon. If the second half of their season goes the same as the first, they'll finish with by far the worst run differential (-426) and record (36-126) in modern MLB history* (since 1901).
The 1888 Nationals at Boston's South End Grounds. (George H. Hastings/Library of Congress)
1886 Washington Nationals (13-68)
This iteration of the Nationals, just one in a long line of teams bearing the same name, never quite escaped the lows of this wretched first season. They folded three years later, but remain an important part of baseball history: 1886 rookie catcher Connie Mack went on to become the winningest manager in MLB history and 1888 rookie outfielder William Hoy, who was deaf, pioneered baseball's use of hand signals.
The 1889 Alleghenys, a year before their top players left for the Players' League. (Mark Rucker/Transcendental Graphics via Getty Images)
1890 Pittsburgh Alleghenys (18-63)
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Pittsburgh's roster was decimated in 1890 when many of its best players jumped ship for the short-lived Players' League. They got their roster back the following year when the PL folded and they even poached a star player from the A's in a controversial move that some called "piratical." It didn't take long for newspapers to give the team a new nickname that quickly became their official moniker: the Pirates.
The 1898 Spiders, one year before they were gutted. (Cleveland Spiders)
1899 Cleveland Spiders (14-67)
This team was historically awful, compiling a .130 winning percentage (20-134) and -723 run differential that are both by far the worst in MLB history. It's no mystery why this happened: After seven straight winning seasons led by their ace Cy Young, the Spiders' owners bought the St. Louis Browns (now the Cardinals) and brought all their best players there. Rather than disband the Spiders, they played one final season with the worst players from both teams.
Walter Johnson before Opening Day of the 1916 season. ()
1904 Washington Senators (18-63)
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"Washington: First in war, first in peace, and last in the American League." Those words, famously written by sportswriter Charles Dryden, summed up the franchise's early struggles, which reached a nadir in their abysmal 1904 season (38-113-6). They changed their name to the Nationals the following year, and their fortunes began turning in 1907 when a young Walter Johnson debuted. In 1961, they moved to Minnesota and became the Twins.
*Who they're chasing: The 1932 Red Sox currently hold the record for worst modern run differential (-345), which is 81 runs better than the Rockies' pace. And last year's White Sox lost 121 games, five fewer than Colorado's current pace of 126.
