The 2025 Colorado Rockies have avoided the grimmest kind of history. Their 7-6 victory over the Los Angeles Angels on Friday marked their 42nd win of the season, and that means they will avoid breaking the 2024 White Sox’s Major League Baseball record of 121 losses in a season.
The Rockies are now at 112 losses with eight games left to play. That puts them on pace for 118 losses on the season, which would still be one of the highest loss tallies in MLB history. Here’s the current list of note:
TeamLossesWinning percentage
1. 2024 Chicago White Sox
121
.248
2. 1962 New York Mets
120
.250
3. 2003 Detroit Tigers
119
.265
4. 1916 Philadelphia Athletics
117
.235
T-5. 2018 Baltimore Orioles
115
.290
T-5. 1935 Boston Braves
115
.248
For a time, the Rockies seemed bent on breaking the White Sox’s record less than a year since it was set. Colorado was 5-25 at the end of April and 9-49 at the close of May. At that point, the Rockies were on pace for 137 losses, which gave them plenty of breathing room insofar as the White Sox’s record was concerned. Since that low point, however, the Rockies have been more conventionally terrible than unprecedentedly awful. Longtime manager Bud Black was let go 40 games into the season and replaced with Warren Schaeffer in the second week of May. The Rockies under Schaeffer continued to struggle badly, but once the calendar flipped to June they found a higher, if still very bad, level.
Since June 1, the Rockies are 33-63, which is good for a winning percentage of .344. That’s a 109-loss pace across an entire season. Again, that’s bad but nowhere close to the depths of the Rockies’ earlier clip. The Rockies have far and away allowed the most runs in MLB since June 1, and they’ve ranked 26th in runs scored over that span. Bake in the effects of Coors Field at a mile above sea level, and it’s safe to say they’ve still been quite hapless at all major phases of the game. That, though, hasn’t been enough to keep them on target for history, and that’s to the White Sox’s chagrin. The record no team wants stands for another year.
At a fundamental level, though, the Rockies are already the worst team in modern MLB history with room to spare. That’s because of their run differential, or their runs allowed subtracted from their runs scored. At present, the 2025 Rockies have a run differential of minus-403. That’s the worst run differential in modern MLB history — i.e., since 1900. Previously, the 1932 Red Sox with a run differential of minus-349 held that record. The worst run differential for 162-game era, 1962 onward, had been minus-339 by the 2023 Athletics. The Rockies this season, however, have blown past both those figures, and they still have games left on the schedule.
To get any kind of