“Wait ’til next year” isn’t a mantra for the Rockies. It is a warning.
Just when you think they have bottomed out, the 2026 team showered shame upon the franchise that will endure forever.
Michael Lorenzen took the mound with conviction to be part of the solution at Coors Field, and exited in disgrace.
The Rockies suffered their most lopsided home-opening loss in 34 seasons. The Phillies clobbered Colorado 10-1 on a windy Friday afternoon in LoDo that featured the return of wintry weather and a reminder of the challenge facing an organization that lost 119 games last season.
Lorenzen stamped Friday as the worst performance of his career, tagged for nine runs on 12 hits in three innings. Coors Field has made Hall of Famers feign injuries, rookies beg for mercy, and used Lorenzen for dental floss after the Phillies devoured, in order, his curve, slider, cutter, changeup and sinker.
The Rockies have been humiliated before in their first home game, but never as badly as this. They trailed 3-0 before Lorenzen recorded an out, and by seven runs when the right-hander finally slumped into the dugout.
Everything the Rockies wanted to show their shivering fans was different about this team became irrelevant. The outcome was decided. And despite a battery of necessary offseason changes, everything felt the same.
Catcher Hunter Goodman (15) of the Colorado Rockies goes to the mound to talk with pitcher Michael Lorenzen (24) of the Colorado Rockies after giving up seven runs in the first inning during the Rockies’ season home opener against the Philadelphia Phillies on Friday, April 3, 2026, at Coors Field in Denver. (Photo by Timothy Hurst/The Denver Post)
Lorenzen is a deep thinker. He long ago took ownership of his career and admits that adversity has defined his journey. It led him to Denver.
He embraced the Rockies’ philosophy of winning with multiple pitches and shapes, and wanted to be a poster child. In his first round against Coors Field, he penned a goodbye letter.
Dearest ERA,
It is with heavy heart I inform you the battle has ended. The quill feels empty. I will retreat to the safety of the clubhouse. Please send squirrel oil for my ailing limb and aching head, and perhaps we will reunite in August under less dire circumstances.
— Michael
In signing Lorenzen to a one-year, $8 million contract, the most for an external free agent since 2015, the Rockies seemingly overlooked — or had to — his issues in Denver.
In eight games, he boasted a 9.24 ERA. Friday, it ballooned to 12.64 in 15 2/3 innings.
The Rockies need him to be a steady veteran, to eat innings, not fill his stats with helium. His career suggests there will be multiple outings like this, sandwiched by periods of effectiveness over six months.
But the timing of this meltdown was brutal.
The home opener, especially for non-contenders, serves as a window into the season. And Lorenzen delivering this stink bomb made the 48,366 in attendance feel as dumb as rocks for braving the cold.
“We wanted to have a good showing for the fans,” said Lorenzen, who threw a no-hitter in his home debut for the Phillies in 2023, a painfully ironic twist to Friday’s mess. “But when you look at it from that angle, that’s where it can turn into panic instead of urgency.”
Manager Warren Schaeffer, whose postgame presser brought back Russell Wilson toxic positivity vibes, stressed that “It was one game of 162.”
Problem is, it is not. This is the one time fans show up, show out and sell out the place for something besides fireworks.
As first impressions go, this was the equivalent of forgetting a date’s name, checking the phone while ordering, and deciding to talk religion and politics over dessert.
When a team is bad off the mound to start, they almost never finish well. Trailing 9-0 after three innings prevented anything that happened in Scottsdale or Toronto from transferring over.
The Rockies want to run the bases like kids chasing an ice cream truck. They swiped 10 bags in the first six games. And they posted none on Friday. Large deficits turn an express subway into the local, requiring station-to-station stops.
The Rockies aim to make more contact. Their swing-and-miss percentage was hilariously bad last season, especially for a team with feeble power. No place awards the ball in play like Coors. You would have never known that against the Phillies as the Rockies struck out 15 times, making Aaron Nola look like he was exacting revenge on the world for Italy’s soccer team failing to qualify for the World Cup.
“It’s baseball, we have just to keep battling,” catcher Hunter Goodman said.
Last home opener, the Rockies lost 6-3 in extra innings to the Sacramento Athletics.
This home opener was worse. The nine-run deficit was the largest in franchise history, topping seven down three times, last in 2016 against the Padres.
Baseball president Paul DePodesta returned after a 10-year hiatus to accept this assignment and found himself in the TV booth as the Phillies used Lorenzen as batting practice. For a moment, I wondered if he would have rather stayed in Cleveland and answered questions about Deshaun Watson.
For everyone who sees the Rockies as a joke until a change in ownership, this was the latest told-you-so moment. There is no way to defend it. It was a complete embarrassment.
This team looked nothing like the group that won its last series at Toronto. The 2025 major league impostors did not win a series until June.
This team is improved, has a deeper roster, no longer pretends Kris Bryant is a major league player and features more functional pitchers (No, seriously).
But no one will believe this until they prove it. They are skunks until the smell disappears.
“It will get better,” Schaeffer said.
Well, it can’t get any worse. On second thought.