Ezequiel Tovar’s August surge has arrived at exactly the right time for the Colorado Rockies, because the questions around him have gotten loud this season.
For most of 2026, Tovar has been one of Colorado’s biggest letdowns, a player who has struggled to hit and has looked nothing like the shortstop the Rockies believed they could count on. But over his last 10 games entering Saturday, he had started to show life, batting .310 with nine hits, one home run and five RBI.
The best snapshot came Aug. 3 against the Tampa Bay Rays, when Tovar went 4-for-4 with a homer and three singles in Colorado’s 13-9 loss. One hot stretch does not erase months of frustration, but it does give him a chance to remind the Rockies why they once saw him as a core piece.
That confidence was easy to understand entering 2026. In 2024, Tovar hit .269 with 26 home runs and an NL-leading 45 doubles while winning his first Gold Glove. His 2025 season was interrupted by injuries, though his strong showing in the World Baseball Classic with Venezuela - a .471/.500/.647 slash line in six games - suggested a bounce-back was coming.
Instead, Tovar went into the All-Star break hitting just .200/.243/.330 with eight home runs and 32 RBI. Statcast showed how aggressive he had become: his 62.6% swing rate and 55.4% first-pitch swing rate both led qualified MLB hitters at the break. The struggles got serious enough that Warren Schaeffer was willing to pull him in important spots, including July 5 against the Giants, when Willi Castro pinch-hit for him in the seventh inning of a game Colorado eventually won 7-6.
That is why the final stretch matters. Tovar’s season line still may end up looking rough, but if he closes strong, it would at least offer proof that 2026 was a prolonged slump rather than the start of something more troubling.
Colorado has spent much of 2026 sorting through younger players who might fit into the future, with Cole Carrigg, TJ Rumfield and Kyle Karros all giving the club new names to evaluate. Tovar is different. The Rockies began the year thinking they already knew what he was; now that certainty is gone.
Tovar knows it, too.
“I'm not a robot. It's going to eat at me sometimes when I'm not executing the way I want,” Tovar told MLB.com after a two-home run performance against the San Francisco Giants in May.
He still has time to turn those flashes into something more consistent before 2026 is over.
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