Rockies back on pace to lose 100, here’s what needs to happen

The Colorado Rockies put together one of the most pathetic performances at the plate in the history of baseball over the weekend, in getting swept by the Los Angeles Dodgers in a four-game series.

The Rockies offense squeaked across six runs in the four games to the Dodgers’ 20, but it’s not even necessarily how much Colorado scored that made it sad. The Rockies didn’t even get shutout in any one game but they did lack any sort of focus in their approaches at the plate. Those worrying at-bats may signify that the team is already thinking about vacation plans in October.

Colorado sent 126 batters to the plate over the weekend against the first-place Dodgers; 49 struck out, 11 singled, five drove in a run, four doubles, three homered, two walked and one was hit by a pitch. That’s right 49 Rockies struck out to two walking. Only the Royals, who are also in last place, only drew two walks over the weekend (three games for them,) and they only struck out 22 times. And Colorado’s 49 strikeouts over the last four games were by a dozen more the worst in baseball.

It’s hard to understate how much of a joke Colorado’s approach at the plate was this weekend. And this is coming from a team who hired a new hitting coach—Hensley (Bam Bam) Meulens—this offseason with the seeming intent to improve the Rockies approach at the plate and draw more walks. Meulens went from assistant hitting coach on the league-leading Yankees with 254 home runs and a 10.1% walk rate last season to leading the fifth-worst walk rate and the seventh-fewest dingers offense this year in the Rockies.

And this terrible offensive weekend has put the Rockies back on pace to lose 100 games for the first time in franchise history. Their five-game losing streak, going 4-9 since the trade deadline, has pushed them back to 45-73 on the season. Which by the way, the deadline taught us you can take the players off the Rockies but you can’t get the stink of the Rockies off the players. The purple pinstripes will now only have to go 16-27 to drop 100 games.

Colorado comes home after the tough road trip and here’s their remaining slate:

Three hosting Arizona
There hosting White Sox
Three at Tampa Bay
Three at Baltimore
Three hosting Atlanta
Three hosting Toronto
Three at Arizona
Three at San Francisco
Three hosting Cubs
Four hosting San Francisco
Three at San Deigo
Three at Cubs
Four hosting Dodgers
Three hosting Minnesota

Colorado’s 44 games left come with opponents who have a combined .537 win percentage, which is the toughest strength of schedule left in baseball. Fangraphs projects the Rockies to lose 101 games. It may actually happen, the Rockies drop 100 games… and then what? The team has the eight-oldest pitching staff and lineup in baseball, so it’s not like there’s youth that’ll be making massive strides heading into 2024.

***