Rockies swept by Cubs, drop to 9-47 as historically bad start continues

Kyle Newman, The Denver Post on May 28, 2025

Published in Baseball

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The Rockies’ last postseason win, a dramatic 2-1 triumph in 13 innings on October 2, 2018, at Wrigley Field, seems like an eon ago.

Colorado, now the worst team in baseball and with a return to the playoffs hard to see anytime soon, remains on the fast track to become the most infamously bad team in modern history. And the friendly confines remain extremely unfriendly to the Rockies, who were swept by the Cubs on Wednesday in a 2-1 defeat.

The loss dropped the Rockies to 9-47 on the season, and 3-25 on the road, amid their ninth straight defeat at Wrigley Field in their ninth sweep of a dismal 2025. The Rockies lost the three games in the series by a total of four runs.

Once again on Wednesday, the offense stalled out, providing little run support to back up a solid performance by starter Tanner Gordon as well as the bullpen. It marked the 28th time this season that the Rockies were held to two runs or less, the most in the majors.

Orlando Arcia — making his Rockies debut after being released by Atlanta, and then officially signed by Colorado on Wednesday — recorded the club’s first hit of the evening with a single to right off southpaw Matthew Boyd.

In the fifth, Ryan McMahon and Arcia both singled to get some traffic going, but again, the Rockies couldn’t do anything with it against Boyd after Michael Toglia grounded into an inning-ending double play.

Gordon held the Cubs at bay, but Chicago’s two big bats hurt him. National League RBI leader Seiya Suzuki roped an RBI double in the first, and fellow slugging outfielder Pete Crow-Armstrong added to the damage with a 379-foot leadoff homer to right in the fourth to extend the lead to 2-0.

Colorado finally broke through against Boyd in the sixth, when Mickey Moniak led off with a single. Moniak advanced to third on a throwing error by Boyd on a pickoff attempt, then Tyler Freeman’s sacrifice fly brought Moniak home to make it 2-1.

But that anemic offensive effort was all Colorado had in the tank.

It wasted a decent start by Gordon, and then 3 1/3 combined scoreless innings by the bullpen trio of Ryan Rolison, Jimmy Herget and the recently reinstated Victor Vodnik, who hadn’t pitched in the majors since April 16 due to right shoulder inflammation.

Down to their last outs in the ninth, right-hander Daniel Palencia made quick work of Colorado to earn the save and send the Rockies limping to Queens for a three-game series against the Mets starting on Friday. Palencia struck out Freeman, got Ezequiel Tovar to ground out and then K’d Hunter Goodman with 100-mph heat to end the game.