DENVER -- The Rockies’ 4-0 loss to the Rays on Wednesday at Coors Field brought Tampa Bay a sweep and handed Colorado its 70th defeat of the season, but the night felt like more than just another entry in a lopsided record.
The conditions were murky from the start, with smoke from wildfires in surrounding states creating a hazy sky over Denver. Colorado’s offense looked just as blurred, too, putting together only six hits. Five were singles, and the lone extra-base knock was a bloop double into shallow left-center.
Still, the bigger picture around the Rockies has shifted enough that a sweep by the American League’s best team does not carry the same weight it might have a year ago. After the front-office shakeup last offseason, this group is measuring itself against better competition in a different way.
That’s why Hunter Goodman’s postgame assessment stood out.
“I think we’re a lot closer to [the Rays] than we are to the team we were last year,” Goodman said.
That is a striking line when you consider what last season looked like in Colorado. The Rockies went 43-119, one of the worst records in MLB history, and the most difficult season in the franchise’s 33-year run.
This year has not turned into a turnaround in the standings, but it has looked different. Wednesday’s loss dropped the Rockies to 25 games under .500, yet they have already won two more games than they did all of last season, and there is a real distinction in the way they are playing.
“Compared to last year,” said Goodman, who debuted in the majors in 2023, “we play these good teams and it’s a lot more competitive baseball. We have chances to win. We’re in almost every game.”
That was not true on Wednesday, when Tampa Bay’s early 4-0 edge felt bigger than the scoreboard suggested because Colorado’s bats never found a rhythm. But the first two games of the series offered a better snapshot of what Goodman was talking about.
On Monday, the Rockies were down 10-2 in the seventh inning before clawing back with two runs in the seventh, one in the eighth and four in the ninth in a 13-9 loss. On Tuesday, they erased a 5-1 deficit by the third inning and pushed ahead 7-5 in the ninth, only to fall 9-7 in 11 innings.
That has become familiar terrain for Colorado this season: fall behind, rally hard, sometimes grab the lead, then lose it late. It’s frustrating, but it also marks a step forward from where the club was last year.
“I think that’s something that comes with more experience,” Goodman said about closing out games. “We’re a young team and we have young guys still learning where they are -- me included. But I think as we grow, [as] we keep playing together and figure out those late-inning games, what we want to do and how we want to attack it, I think we’ll be good.”
The Rays provided the kind of opponent that can show a young club what winning baseball looks like. Tampa Bay has long been built on clean execution rather than flash, and the results have followed. The Rays made five straight postseason trips from 2019-23, including a World Series appearance in 2020, before finishing fourth in each of the past two seasons.
Now they look headed back toward October, a place the Rockies want to reach themselves someday.
“They play good, clean baseball,” Goodman said of the Rays. “Offensively, they do a little bit of everything -- they have some guys who can slug, some guys who get on base and run.
And I think in our lineup, we have some of that as well and we’re working to get to a better spot. I think playing a team like that is good for us.”
Colorado is not trying to copy Tampa Bay, though. The Rockies see the Rays as a standard to chase, not a blueprint to imitate.
“You give respect to the Rays,” Rockies manager Warren Schaeffer said. “They’re a good ball club.
They’re a first-place team for a reason. … But we have a good thing going here.
We’re getting better. We’re playing the game the way we want to play, we’re preparing the way we want to prepare.
“And we think that’s going to be the answer.”
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