DENVER -- Following their 5-4 loss to the Rangers in their series finale at Coors Field on Wednesday afternoon, the Rockies found themselves at 19-31 over the first 50 games of the season.
It’s a vast improvement from their 8-40 mark at this time one year ago, but given how many games Colorado has lost in the late innings so far in 2026, you wonder how that record would look if the club was able to finish off those would-be victories.
It’s hard not to consider that question in the wake of what transpired on Wednesday.
Leading, 4-3, entering the top of the ninth inning, left-hander Brennan Bernardino was summoned from the bullpen to try and close the game out. After he struck out pinch-hitter Danny Jansen, Joc Pederson reached on catcher’s interference by catcher Brett Sullivan.
The next two batters reached on singles to load the bases, and Rockies manager Warren Schaeffer brought in righty Juan Mejia to get the final two outs. On an 0-1 pitch to the next batter, Josh Jung, a Mejia fastball that Jung missed popped out of Sullivan’s glove and trickled away, enabling the tying run to score. Jung then singled in the go-ahead run.
It was a disastrous sequence, and as the skies opened and a steady rain began to fall, it seemed the weather was mirroring the Rockies’ play below.
Once again, Colorado had let one get away.
“No excuse,” Sullivan said of his costly miscues in the ninth. “Just hit off my glove. Just … tough. Can’t happen. No excuses.”
Between contests that the Rockies led late before losing and those in which they trailed before fighting back to tie or take the lead in an eventual loss, the examples are piling up:
March 29: The Rockies blew a 3-2, ninth-inning lead and lost to the Marlins in Miami, 4-3.
April 9: Lost on a walk-off grand slam by the Padres’ Xander Bogaerts in the 12th.
April 10: Lost on a walk-off three-run homer by the Padres’ Gavin Sheets in the ninth.
April 23: Led the Padres, 8-5, in the ninth at Coors and lost, 10-8.
May 1: Led the Braves, 6-2, in the eighth before losing, 8-6, at Coors.
When the gut-punch losses -- particularly the ones like the April 10 defeat, in which Colorado rallied to tie the game in the eighth -- add up, it can take a toll on a club, particularly a rebuilding group like the Rockies.
But that’s just it: it’s taking a toll, but the reason is because the Rockies expect to win those games.
“Being in games doesn’t really count, right?” said Jake McCarthy, who continued his hot stretch at the plate with a single and a triple along with his ninth steal of the season. “When it boils down, I think we play the game the right way. We play hard, we compete, but at the end of the day, when the losses add up, it is frustrating.”
Coming off a 119-loss campaign in 2025, the Rockies have made strides forward. But that forward progress has continued to hit speed bumps along the way -- and those speed bumps have often come in the form of heartbreaking defeats.
Schaeffer said that he’s confident, however, that these types of games will serve as growing pains that will lead to better outcomes. As far as how that process will take shape, he said the players take ownership of the results.
“There’s nothing to address,” Schaeffer said. “They know. They’re in the process of learning how to win. ... We had exactly what we wanted there in the ninth inning. It was just unfortunate, just didn’t work out.”
With a new-look front office featuring president of baseball operations Paul DePodesta, general manager Josh Byrnes and others who have been brought aboard to lead the Rockies out of the doldrums and into what they hope will be a sustained window of competitiveness, it’s not unusual to see these types of losses along the way.
The question is: Will experiencing them lead to wins in the future?
For the man whose ninth-inning errors precipitated Wednesday’s unraveling, there was a somber but steely resolve when he answered questions about what happened.
Wins don’t come from resolve alone. But it all has to start somewhere.
“You’ve gotta stay the course,” Sullivan said. “I think we have a great team. We’ve been in the fight. And, shoot, almost every single game, we’ve been in it. You’ve just gotta get back after it tomorrow.”