Rockies Make More Unwanted History After Embarrassing Sweep Against Blue Jays

The Rockies are having a tough year.

That is an understatement.

The Rockies are having one of the toughest years in baseball history. Even that might be gentle, but we’ll go with it for now. With 48 games left to play, Colorado sits with a record of 30–84 on the season, 54 games below .500. They are 35.5 games behind the Dodgers for first place in the NL West, and 23.5 games behind the Diamondbacks for second-to-last place in the NL West.

They stand alone as the worst team in baseball, with the Chicago White Sox 12 games above them.

While it’s obviously been a struggle all season for the Rockies, they continue to find innovative ways to dig deeper into the depths of baseball despair even into August, as their recent sweep at the hands of the Blue Jays showed.

Colorado dropped three straight games against Toronto by scores of 15–1, 10–4, and 20–1, despite holding leads in the first inning in two of the three contests.

But the sweep wasn’t just any old blowout—it was an historic one. The Blue Jays set franchise records for both runs (45) and hits (63) in a three-game series, and their 63 hits are the most of any team in a three-game series since at least 1901, per MLB.

“It’s a really good team that puts the ball in play a ton. That’s what they do,” Rockies interim manager Warren Schaeffer said after the series was mercifully over. “It’s why they’re on top of the American League. So you’ve got to tip your hat to them, and we’ve got to make better pitches.”

It’s a simple bit of advice, but there’s really not much else you can say after such an epic beatdown.

For what it’s worth, not every run and hit the Blue Jays secured came against a Rockies squad that was playing for the win. Colorado was trailing by just 11 runs (woof) heading into the ninth inning on Wednesday night, and let catcher Austin Nola take the mound in relief to finish the game. He gave up eight runs including two homers before he was finally able to get out of the inning.

Last year’s White Sox currently hold the record for worst 162-game MLB campaign with a 41–121 record. While the Rockies are currently on pace to finish just ahead of that mark, their performance against the Blue Jays shows that this team is plenty capable of making some more demoralizing history.