The Colorado Rockies opened the 2026 season in Miami with a lineup that looked nothing like the one that started 2025 \u2014 between debuts and new additions, this felt less like a continuation and more like a reset.<\/p>\n
Kyle Karros<\/a> made his first Opening Day start, following in the footsteps of his father Eric<\/a>, who made nine in his career.<\/p>\n TJ Rumfield<\/a> made his MLB debut, becoming the first rookie to start Opening Day for Colorado since Trevor Story in 2016.<\/p>\n Jake McCarthy<\/a> and Edouard Julien<\/a> also made their first Opening Day starts for the Rockies, underscoring just how much this roster has turned over.<\/p>\n Even Warren Schaeffer<\/a> was managing in his first Opening Day game.<\/p>\n The result? A competitive game that ultimately slipped away, 2\u20131<\/a>, with just a hint of familiar frustration on offense.<\/p>\n Freeland battles, bullpen delivers <\/p>\n Kyle Freeland<\/a> took the loss, falling to 1\u20133 with a 7.01 ERA in five Opening Day starts \u2014 a number skewed to an extent by one rough outing.<\/p>\n This wasn\u2019t ace-level dominance, but it was veteran pitching.<\/p>\n Freeland bent, but didn\u2019t break. He worked through traffic, issued a couple of walks, and gutted his way through 4.1 innings, allowing two earned runs while keeping the game within reach.<\/p>\n He handed the game off with a chance.<\/p>\n And from there, the bullpen was awesome.<\/p>\n Jimmy Herget<\/a>, Brennan Bernardino<\/a> (making his Rockies debut), and Juan Mejia<\/a> combined for 3.2 scoreless innings\u2014no walks, two strikeouts, and a key escape in the eighth. Mejia stranded a runner at third with a full-count strikeout on a back-up slider that froze Caissie.<\/p>\n Sandy Alcantara<\/a> was everything you expect from an ace.<\/p>\n His fastball touched the upper 90\u2019s, his secondaries had sharp depth, and he worked efficiently \u2014 seven innings, four hits, one unearned run, five strikeouts. For long stretches, the Rockies looked eager against him, pressing early before settling in late.<\/p>\n But they never fully solved him.<\/p>\n Manufacturing one, missing more <\/p>\n Colorado\u2019s lone run came in the fourth \u2014 and it came the hard way.<\/p>\n The inning started with Jake McCarthy dropping a drag bunt and using his speed to create some chaos and reach first base. McCarthy then stole second base, but his aggressiveness backfired as he was cut down at home after a Hunter Goodman<\/a> single.<\/p>\n Willi Castro<\/a> beat out a double-play ball. Tovar followed with a topped ball that forced a tough play. Rumfield showed discipline with a four-pitch walk in his second MLB plate appearance. Beck added an infield hit driving in Castro.<\/p>\n It was a textbook manufactured run. It was also the only one.<\/p>\n The Rockies had their best chance in the eighth, and couldn\u2019t cash in.<\/p>\n Hunter Goodman, who led the team with two hits, put together a strong at-bat against Anthony Bender<\/a>, fighting off multiple sweepers before lining a two-out single to left. Karros moved to third, and suddenly Colorado had runners on the corners.<\/p>\n An ABS challenge flipped a ball to a strike. Castro worked the count full as Bender struggled to land his off-speed.<\/p>\n Then Bender went back to the sweeper.<\/p>\n Castro chased one down and in \u2014 out of the zone \u2014 for strike three.<\/p>\n Bullpen escape keeps it close <\/p>\n Miami immediately applied pressure in the bottom half.<\/p>\n Connor Norby led off with a double, and after a groundout moved him to third, the infield came in. Mejia induced a pop-up in foul territory for the second out, then delivered the biggest pitch of the night:<\/p>\n Full count. Two outs. Runner on third.<\/p>\n A back-up slider that froze Owen Caissie.<\/p>\n The Rockies had one more shot in the ninth.<\/p>\n Facing Peter Fairbanks, they couldn\u2019t break through. Tovar struck out chasing, Beck popped out, and after TJ Rumfield collected his first MLB hit \u2014 a broken-bat blooper into shallow right-center \u2014 Brenton Doyle lined out to shortstop to end it.<\/p>\n The Rockies lose their opener, 2\u20131.<\/p>\n There were some familiar frustrations \u2014 the inability to sustain innings and cash in with runners in scoring position had a bit of a 2025 feel.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s too early to spiral there. The hitters were overly aggresive in swing decisions early, but settled in a bit as the excitement of Opening Day dissipated. Colorado struck out nine times \u2014 an improvement from Opening Day 2025, when they struck out 12 in another one-run loss in Florida.<\/p>\n This team looked more athletic. More versatile. More aggressive. The bullpen was excellent. Freeland kept them in it.<\/p>\n They were competitive. Gutty. A game within reach all night.<\/p>\n Sandy Alcantara was simply better \u2014 and the Rockies couldn\u2019t quite capitalize.<\/p>\n The Rockies will look to even the series tomorrow<\/a> at 2:10 p.m. MDT.<\/p>\n Michael Lorenzen<\/a> is scheduled to start for Colorado, with Miami countering with Eury P\u00e9rez<\/a>.<\/p>\n Fewer adsCreate community posts<\/a>Comment on articles, community postsRec comments, community postsNew, improved notifications system!<\/p>\n Please keep in mind our Purple Row Community Guidelines<\/a> when you\u2019re commenting. Thanks!
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Colorado Rockies opened the 2026 season in Miami with a lineup that looked nothing like the one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":648418,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2405],"tags":[5,167,52,82997,4316,4,168],"class_list":{"0":"post-648417","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-colorado-rockies","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-colorado","10":"tag-colorado-rockies","11":"tag-colorado-rockies-game-information","12":"tag-coloradorockies","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-rockies"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116306394371049147","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=648417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/648418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=648417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=648417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=648417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}