The Rockies are staring at the same ugly milestone again, and the path away from it doesn’t look friendly.
After losing two of three at home to the Cardinals over the weekend, Colorado’s chances of finishing with fewer than 100 losses for the fourth straight season are fading fast. The schedule doesn’t offer much help, either.
There are three games in New York against the playoff-bound Yankees, three in Detroit against an above-average Tigers team, then 10 more at home against the Padres, Mariners and a Diamondbacks club still battling for a playoff spot. After that comes a three-game trip to Chicago to finish against a White Sox team that currently leads the American League Central, even after losing 121 games two seasons ago.
Manager Warren Schaeffer has brushed off the significance of the total, and he has a point. In the broadest sense, 100 losses and 99 losses don’t change much.
But the number still carries a different weight inside a young, rebuilding clubhouse. That’s the real question now: does staying below 100 matter in a way the standings can’t measure?
That idea takes me back to the Rockies’ first year, 1993, and a scene at Hi Corbett Field in Tucson before the franchise’s first full-squad workout. The room was full of castoffs - has beens, never weres and minor league free agents, players other teams had already decided they could live without.
First-year manager Don Baylor walked in with no illusions about the standings, but with a very clear standard. Early in that first team meeting, he said, “we will not lose 100 games.”
And he meant it.
Baylor was no stranger to winning. He had been a standout player, an All-Star, the American League MVP and a key piece of three World Series teams, including the 1987 champion Twins.
He hit for power, ran hard and didn’t have much patience for losing. He understood that an expansion club wasn’t about to chase a pennant, but he also understood something else: the right mindset matters, and culture starts somewhere.
For him, beginning with 100 losses wasn’t acceptable.
That 1993 team stumbled plenty, as expected, but it still finished 67-95. Rockies fans would take that in a heartbeat right now.
Two years later, Baylor had Colorado in the postseason for the first time.
The Rockies were also one of the last teams in MLB history to take a 100-loss season, and for years they were unusual in another way: they had never won 100 games, either. That changed in 2023, their 30th season, when they finally crossed the 100-loss line.
So yes, it’s only a number. And yes, the on-field signs say this group has made real progress. Colorado is clearly better than it was a year ago, even if the pitching remains well behind the rest of the roster.
But numbers can still carry a message. The Rockies have already endured one historic 119-loss season, and a 15- to 18-win improvement would at least point in the right direction. The lingering question is whether avoiding 100 losses again would give this group something more than a better record on paper - whether it would feel like a step that matters.