For supporters of the Colorado Rockies, Thursday’s game was a glimmer of hope in a season that has been mostly devoid of it.
After battling the San Francisco Giants — one of just six MLB teams with at least 40 wins this season — to close, 9th inning losses over the previous two games, the Rockies rallied from an early 4-0 deficit to walk off their divisional rivals in the ninth inning, winning the game 8-7. They snapped a five-game losing streak.
The rare 2025 victory was one of just a handful of positive moments amidst a season that is currently projected to be the worst in MLB history since 1900. This historically terrible season is the latest in a string of brutal years for Rockies fans, who have endured at least 90 losses each year since 2021.
In the midst of what will likely end up being the worst four consecutive seasons in franchise history, some people — long supporters and fans of the ballclub — have begun to accept that the franchise’s sorry quality of play may be here to stay.Â
Images of fans wearing paper bags over their heads have been shared across social media platforms, some with the words “sell the team” written around the eye holes in the front. The same sentiment, as well as other disdain-laden messages concerning the team’s performance, can be found in the comments section under nearly every social media post made by the team.
For one Blake Street bar owner, the team’s poor performance has led him to do something many baseball fans would consider sacrilegious: replace the Rockies flag on the outside of his building with one of a hated divisional rival.
A change of allegiance
The Rockies are one of MLB’s newest franchises, originally founded in 1993. Since then, they have had their fair share of losing seasons, including multiple instances of losing more than 90 games in back-to-back seasons. But never in the team’s history has the franchise lost so much and so consistently as they have over the past four years.
Mark Kinsey has owned a bar on Blake Street since Coors Field first opened in 1995, initially operating the Sports Column bar before buying nearby Swanky’s Vittles and Libations in 2017. For 30 years, he’s relied on the 81 home games the Rockies play just a baseball’s throw across the street to bring customers in to his establishments in Lower Downtown.
But now, in the midst of declining sales, he’s begun finding alternative ways to drive business.
Beginning with Colorado’s home series against the Philadelphia Phillies on May 19, Kinsey has begun swapping the Rockies flag that once flew outside Swanky’s with the flag of the opposing team, hoping to draw in the their fans seeking a pre- and postgame refuge among others of their ilk.
Even before then, the bar had been filling up with more out-of-town fans than locals, the bar owner said.
“We rely on more on who the opposing team is than the product on the field now,” Kinsey said. “It is depressing, but we have to rely on something.”
Along with appealing to opposing fans, Kinsey has developed a series of promotions held at Swanky’s throughout the week to try and get people in his business, including weekday and game-day deals.
One of those promotions, offered Tuesday night, during the first game of the Giants series, was a complimentary brown paper bag with any purchase. Fans who opted in were given markers and stickers to customize their bags how they wished.
Still, he said, those deals — as well as similar game-day promotions offered by neighboring Blake Street bars — are not nearly enough to compete with the cheap prices set by the Monfort family, who own the Rockies.
“Bars are cutting staff because they’re hoping for a big summer, a big baseball season, and they’re not getting it,” Kinsey said.
Kinsey noted that he doesn’t blame the Monforts for operating the team — as well as the several properties the family owns adjacent to the stadium — in this manner, calling them “great business people” for their ability to generate profits year after year.
“They’re just not great baseball people,” Kinsey said. “With them not putting a good product on the field and not catering to baseball fans, it’s hurting all the businesses around them that have supported them since day one.”
The Rockies by the numbers
Last year, the Chicago White Sox set the modern MLB record — one that had stood since the year 1900 — for the most losses in a season, with 121.
Including Colorado’s win on Thursday, the Rockies are projected, at the time of publishing, to lose 131 games in 2025, a mark that would shatter Chicago’s record for the worst in league history.
“I more so come (to Coors) to see the other teams,” said Joel Ahrenberg, a fan for more than 10 years, sitting on the bench outside of the ballpark before the series opener on Tuesday night. “I think the challenging part is that they get a lot of young, new talent and then they get rid of them. It’s like, what are you doing?”
In addition to having the worst record among MLB teams this season, the Rockies also rank near the bottom of the league in regard to most major statistical categories as well.
Only two of Colorado’s qualified hitters have an On-base Plus Slugging mark — the sum of the percent of times batters get on base and the quality of their hits — over the league average, according to baseball-reference.com.
This lack of offense is, in large part, due to the fact that as a team the Rockies are striking out at a rate much higher than any other in the league while generating below-average offensive production.
The strikeout percentage and the on-base plus slugging of each MLB team’s hitters through June 13, 2025. Data courtesy of fangraphs.com. Plot created using the pybaseball scraping tool. (Michael Braithwaite / The Denver Gazette)
Michael Braithwaite / The Denver Gazette
Additionally, Colorado’s pitching has been poor as well. No starting pitcher on the Rockies has an Earned Run Average — the number of earned runs they allow over the course of nine innings — below league average, and have recorded the fewest strikeouts of opposing batters of any team in the sport, according to Baseball Reference.
The earned run average and the number of opposing hitters struck out of each MLB team’s pitchers through June 13, 2025. Data courtesy of fangraphs.com. Plot created using the pybaseball scraping tool. (Michael Braithwaite / The Denver Gazette)
Michael Braithwaite / The Denver Gazette
The team’s on-field performance has gotten so depressing that Kinsey has created an unofficial new rule for baseball fans at Swanky’s.
“I don’t allow people to talk religion and politics in my bar, and now it’s like, don’t talk about the Rockies,” Kinsey said. “We’ve already heard everything, and there’s nothing we can do.”
Kinsey is not the only bar owner to turn heel on the Rockies given the product the team has recently put on the field. The Dirty Duck, a bar southeast of downtown, has used the team’s poor performance as a way to advertise its own business this year with signs like “Watch The Rockies Make History Here.”Â
The Dirty Duck, a local dive bar in South Denver, lampoons the Colorado Rockies with their sign next to Evans Ave.Â
Marco Cummings
marco.cummings@denvergazette.com
“You look at the rosters these days, and there aren’t many guys to cheer for anymore,” said Addison Coen, a lifelong Denver sports fan who got free tickets to Thursday’s game through his company.
For Coen, rooting for individual players has become less about their on-field performance and more about what they mean to him as a fan.
“I worked here at Coors Field in 2017, it was the year Kyle Freeland came within two outs of throwing a no-hitter,” Coen said, wearing a jersey with Freeland’s name on the back. “He’s our Colorado boy, he went to Thomas Jefferson (High School). He seems like one of the few that management won’t get rid of, which is a bummer because I wish he would play better and become too expensive.”
For now, Coors is still a consistent draw
Despite the Rockies being well on pace to shatter the record for the worst year in modern MLB history, the attendance at Coors Field has not taken a significant hit thus far into the season.
The average attendance at Coors — 28,356, according to ESPN — ranks exactly average, 15th out of 30 MLB teams, this year.Â
Foot traffic statistics provided by the Downtown Denver Partnership also indicate that, despite the team’s poor performance, the area around the ballpark remains populated. May saw the most out-of-market visitors in the area around Coors Field and Arapahoe Square since at least 2021, according to the data provided.
Foot traffic data detailing out-of-market visitors in the area around Coors Field and Arapahoe Square from April through September in 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025 through June. Data courtesy of the Downtown Denver Partnership. (Michael Braithwaite / The Denver Gazette)
Michael Braithwaite / The Denver Gazette
But after mid-summer swells across June and July, every year since 2021 has seen a significant decline in August ballpark foot traffic before a modest September rebound, according to the data. That decline is worrisome for Kinsey, who has already seen a 7% downturn in sales through June in comparison to last year.
“I’m really nervous about what to expect once we hit the rest of the season stretch, because it’s dwindling a little bit now and we haven’t reached the halfway point,” Kinsey said. “What’s going to happen? Only time will tell.”
Kinsey attributes the consistent attendance at Coors to the beauty of the ballpark and Colorado as a whole being a nice place to travel to for away fans, as well as those who just enjoy the sport of baseball and want to go and have a fun night with their friends, regardless of how poorly the Rockies are playing.Â
“People are laissez faire, they’re just coming down to be in the sun and either watch the opposing team or just watch baseball,” Kinsey said. “We didn’t know it was going to happen, couldn’t prepare for it, but I think the Rockies have been so bad over the course of the past few years that nothing can shock us anymore.”