“I always thought that record would stand until it was broken.”
– Yogi Berra
When the Colorado Rockies opened their season with a loss that set a few records for them, and eclipsed a mark that was 124 years old, you kind of hoped that would be it for the record-breaking this year. But this season’s Rox outdid themselves the other night in a game against the National League’s somehow-even-worse team, the Miami Marlins. Colorado opened the top of the first with a five spot, a lead they’d carry until the end of the game, but one they promptly gave up in the bottom of the ninth, allowing Miami to tie the game and send it to extra innings. While Colorado managed their first run outside of that first inning in the top of the 10th, they also managed to cough up two more in the bottom of the 10th, losing the game. Crap.
And with that, the 2024 Colorado Rockies set another record, becoming the first team in major league history to trail at some point in each of their first 29 games, record only 114 years old this time. Maybe not their proudest acheivement, but a first all the same. Not to be held to their new record, the Rockies promptly went out and tacked on trailing-game #30 in another 10 inning loss to the same Marlins the next night. Coming into the series, the then 7-22 Rox traded places with the then 7-24 Marlins in the standings, now at the bottom of the National League.
At this pace, the Rockies would have to stretch a little to win 37 games this season, which would also be the kind of record Colorado just doesn’t seem to want to break. But somehow cannot seem to help themselves from doing.
Breaking these sorts of ignominious records seems to be getting to be old hat for these Rockies, playing very much like a broken record themselves. While you cannot imagine some of the bumpiest starts in the club’s history will continue for all of the players that have suffered it thus far, you also have to wonder when the Rockies club and faithful will start to believe in what this season’s data is telling them. 20% of the way into the year, last season’s “rock bottom” may have been more a false bottom to something even a little darker and more troublesome.
It really is a glorious time in Denver to be a sports fan. The pro basketball and hockey teams have recent championships, the ever-favored football team makes news left and right. The sounds of sports around the Mile-High City are a thumping and harmonious barbaric yawp that has so many dancing to the beat of Denver’s drum. And while the records fall left and right around Coors Field these days, it’s not the kind of broken record many folks seem to want to be listening to. No one seems to be able to find much of a beat, and you sure can’t dance to it.
