Professional baseball players are, by nature, a confident bunch. Belief in their own ability is a key component to reaching the Majors, an accomplishment few baseball players will realize during the course of their careers.
Winning games once you’re there? That can be another story all together.
For three young teams in the National League -- the Marlins, Pirates and Rockies -- the early weeks of the 2026 season have produced building blocks, giving players, coaching staffs and front offices reason for optimism.
“I think belief is really important for any team, whether you're young or experienced,” said Rockies president of baseball operations Paul DePodesta. “Whenever you get off to a good start, it's easier for guys to believe not only themselves, but also in each other and their ability to be competitive day in and day out.”
Colorado’s three-game sweep of the Astros this week evened its record at 6-6 before the club suffered a walk-off loss to the Padres on Thursday night. After losing three straight one-run games to the Marlins to open the year, the Rockies went 6-3 in their next nine games.
“I think they are starting to see what's possible,” DePodesta said. “We've already faced some adversity and we've been able to bounce back from it and be successful. Those types of experiences relatively early in the season can be helpful.”
Opening a season with six or seven wins in your first 12 games isn’t a historic feat by any means, but given the recent success -- or lack thereof -- for these three teams, early-season victories can be a crucial confidence-booster.
“Winning games is better than losing, so getting off to a good start is great,” said Marlins manager Clayton McCullough. “If you get off to a tougher start, it’s like, 'What are you going to do about it? Is the season over after two weeks?' It’s certainly not made after two weeks. I’m glad that we have gotten off to a decent start, but that means nothing for what the rest of the year is going to look like.”
McCullough speaks from experience. The Marlins were 6-6 after their first 12 games a year ago, but things got away from Miami quickly. By mid-May, the Marlins were 10 games under .500, digging a hole that proved to be too deep to emerge from.
Miami started this season with the aforementioned three-game sweep of the Rockies, propelling the Marlins to a 5-1 start. They lost four of their next five before bouncing back with a pair of wins over the Reds, lifting their record to 8-5.
Pirates general manager Ben Cherington saw some positives during Spring Training, and while those vibes are only meaningful when players back it up on the field, Pittsburgh overcame a 1-3 start to win six of its next eight games.
“It was clear that the group likes playing together, wants to be together, and the energy was focused in pretty positive ways,” said Cherington, whose team started 4-8 last year en route to a 91-loss season. “To have a decent start just helps keep that momentum going. You're going to get punched and there's going to be adversity. It's the group of people in the clubhouse that are in uniform, particularly the players, who are largely going to decide how we respond to that adversity.”
Adding veteran hitters Ryan O’Hearn and Brandon Lowe has done wonders for the Pirates lineup, which also got a boost from the promotion of No. 1 overall prospect Konnor Griffin a week into the season. Pittsburgh’s offense has been roughly league average this season (4.5 runs per game), a huge leap thus from its league-worst offense (3.6 runs per game) last season.
“Filling more of our lineup spots with guys that you can count on having a pretty professional, consistent at-bat every time, it helps,” Cherington said. “It makes it harder for the other team’s pitching staff to attack when you have more of those guys in the lineup. Lowe and O’Hearn are also accustomed to playing baseball games that matter, where lots of little things tend to add up to outcomes. It’s normal to them, which has been a good model for the guys.”
After losing 119 games last season, the Rockies knew they had a long way to go toward contention. DePodesta was hired in November after a decade working for the NFL’s Cleveland Browns, but the long-time baseball executive knew the outside perception of his new team.
A dozen games into the season, the vibes -- there’s that word again -- inside the Colorado clubhouse are already far different than they were during last year’s dreadful campaign.
“I don't want to blow any of this out of proportion and make it seem like, ‘Oh, we've we figured this out after 12 games,’ because we certainly haven't,” DePodesta said. “But priority number one was to flip the narrative around our organization and around our team. I think [manager Warren Schaeffer] and the coaches have done a great job with that, and the players have, too, because ultimately, it takes their buy-in for that to happen.”
The Rockies didn’t get their sixth win last year until May 1, lifting them to 6-25. The seventh victory didn’t come for 10 more days, at which point they were 7-33.
“We talked a lot this winter about the experience that our young players have had in Colorado over the course of their careers; other than Kyle Freeland and Antonio Senzatela, the experience so far in a Rockies uniform in the big leagues hasn't been terribly positive,” DePodesta said. “To sort of disabuse that and say, ‘It can be different and it will be different, and you're going to be part of the solution,’ and to get some early returns on that, I think that's all very positive.”
The Rockies’ first six games at Coors Field produced some encouraging signs for DePodesta, who watched his pitching staff hold opponents (the Phillies and Astros) to one run three times and two runs in another game.
Oddly enough, it was the other two games that stood out even more to DePodesta.
After Michael Lorenzen was knocked around for nine runs in three innings against the Phillies, right-hander Valente Bellozo came out of the bullpen to throw the final six innings of the lopsided loss.
“They know that even in those games that we're not winning, they're contributing to us winning future games or at least having a better chance to win in the future,” DePodesta said. “They're taking pride in that.”
Three days later, Colorado found itself down 3-0 after four innings, but an eight-run fifth helped the Rox take a 9-7 win that started the three-game sweep.
“We know that's part of what it's going to look like, too, especially as the weather warms up,” DePodesta said. “We know that we're going to have to be able to do it in different ways, but for us to be focused on the win no matter how we get it, I think that mindset is already starting to sink in.”
Will any of these three teams use their solid starts to make a run at the postseason? That remains to be seen. But unlike years when they have each faced steep mountains to climb before the calendar even turned to May, these first two weeks have given them a sense of hope.
“Our group has really been focused on just staying in the day and not getting ahead on outcomes,” Cherington said. “Do what we have to do today to give ourselves the best chance to win tonight, and then whatever happens, what do we learn from that to get better tomorrow? I'm confident this group is going to continue to do that, just to focus on the everyday behaviors. Where that leads us? We're going to find out.”
Marlins beat reporter Christina DeNicola contributed reporting to this story.