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Rockies at midseason: Breaking down Colorado's historically bad first half as club is on pace for 108 losses

Kyle Newman, The Denver Post on

Published in Baseball

The next day, Colorado finally won its first series on its 13th try after a franchise-worst 12 series without a series victory to begin the year.

As the Rockies entered a full-blown June swoon, the going only got rougher, making a seven-game May winning streak feel like a distant memory.

Colorado is 6-19 this month, the worst mark in the National League, while allowing an MLB-high 168 runs.

This month, the Rockies blew two more games via catastrophic ninth innings — June 5 against the Reds and June 18 against the Dodgers— to set another dubious Modern Era record. Those meltdowns gave the Rockies six instances in which they were leading in the ninth or later only to give up five-plus runs that inning and surrender the lead, surpassing the four times that the ’39 Browns and ’52 White Sox did so.

Along the way of a look-away first half, the Rockies were dominated by a variety of starting pitchers — the Blue Jays’ Jose Berrios, Phillies’ Ranger Suarez, Mariners’ Luis Castillo, Padres’ Dylan Cease and Pirates rookie Jared Jones, to name just a few — as their streaky offense sputtered.

Colorado’s dreadful pitching underscored the ineptitude. The Rockies entered Friday with a 5.60 overall ERA, 5.52 starting ERA and 5.78 bullpen ERA — all MLB worsts, as is the .289 opponent average.

 

—Injury-Riddled Rox

The Rockies weren’t expected to be good this year, but their futility’s been compounded by a rash of injuries that exposed their severe lack of depth.

It started with Daniel Bard’s knee injury just before the start of spring training. The reliever then underwent season-ending elbow surgery in April.

But Bard’s absence is only the frosting on Colorado’s moldy cake this year, as Kris Bryant continuing to be MIA is the biggest injury storyline.

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