Rockies send down struggling youngster, put closer on IL

Good news: the Colorado Rockies won a series Saturday with a second-straight comeback win against the Pittsburgh Pirates. Bad news: The Rockies may have suffered a big blow with their young closer, Seth Halvorsen, exiting with a serious elbow injury. And to add insult to injury, the team sent down former top prospect Michael Toglia, who is having an awful season.

The Rockies placed Halvorsen on the Injured List and optioned Toglia to Triple-A on Sunday. The team recalled right-handed reliever Nick Anderson and catcher Braxton Fulford from Albuquerque. The team also picked up Blaine Crim off of waivers from Texas and sent him to the Isotopes.

Halvorsen will get an MRI on his pitching elbow Sunday, and the Rockies are fearing the worst, with interim manager Warren Schaffer saying after Saturday’s game that it’s “not looking good.” The worst would be a torn UCL, requiring Tommy John. That would likely cost Halvorsen the rest of this season, some of 2026, and impact him for a part of 2027.

Halvorsen rode 12 strong outings in 2024 to make the club again in 2025, where he has been a pretty solid closer when given the rare save opportunities to succeed for the 30-80 team. He’s picked up 11 saves in 14 chances over his 41 outings with a 4.99 ERA. His metrics and strikeout numbers hint that Halvorsen may be getting some luck, but nonetheless, he’s been a decent bright spot for the Rockies’ bullpen, which has the third-worst ERA in MLB this season. Look for Victor Vodnik to now fill in as the closer.

Then there’s Toglia, who is having one of the worst seasons in modern MLB history. Since the Rockies’ inception in 1993, Toglia’s fWAR of -2.0 this season ranks as the 38th-worst campaign in that period among players with at least 300 trips to the plate. The first baseman has played in 85 games for the Rockies this season and has a .194/.261/.361 slash line and a by far worst strikeout rate in baseball at 38.3 percent. Normally, players with that type of whiff rate at least have some pop, but that’s not been the case for Toglia this season has just 11 home runs and 32 RBI

It’s actually incredible how much Toglia has played for being as bad as he has been. He topped Hall of Famer Todd Helton’s franchise record for most consecutive starts at first base last year — but that was when he was a positive player. And maybe that’s one of the reasons Toglia has played so much in 2025; last year, he hit 25 home runs and was a legitimate positive contributor.

He was recently replaced in the lineup by the red-hot rookie Warming Bernabel, who is the second player in the modern era to have 14 or more hits and eight or more extra-base hits through seven career MLB games. Toglia loses his spot on the roster to the catcher Fulford. He had one stint with the Rockies in the majors earlier in 2025 and has had a strong season in Triple-A. Meanwhile, Anderson gets another chance after a rough one-inning outing put a damper on the Rockies possibly getting a solid veteran in the bargain bin.

Crim just made his MLB debut earlier this year and has had little time in the majors, but has had some strong seasons for Albuquerque’s rival in Round Rock.

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