DENVER – The fanfare and festivities of the Colorado Rockies’ 2026 home opener against the Philadelphia Phillies fell flat as the Rockies allowed 7 runs in the opening frame and would lose 10-1.<\/p>\n
It was the worst loss in Colorado’s home opening day history, and the most runs allowed since 2019.<\/p>\n
The damage began with the first three batters, as pitcher Michael Lorenzen made his Rockies Coors Field debut. A double for Trae Turner, and back-to-back walks to Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper. Alec Bohm took advantage of the bases loaded with no outs, with a 2 RBI single.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Phillies would bat around in the inning before Lorenzen escaped.<\/p>\n
“Not a lot of feel for [Lorenzen’s] pitches today,” said Rockies manager Warren Schaeffer. “That’s plain and simple, got behind in counts, then the fastball command wasn’t there, the walk to Schwarber, the walk to Harper, both on heaters. A mistake to Marsh for the homer, just wasn’t Mike’s day. He’ll be better next time out. There’s one bad inning, one game outta 162, don’t worry about it, it’s gonna be better.”<\/p>\n
Shining for the Rockies was Valente Bellozo, a player they called up from Triple-A Albuquerque the day before, who would pitch the final six innings, only giving up a solo home run to Schwarber in the fifth. Bellozo would also strike out 7 batters.<\/p>\n
“Bellozo saved our bullpen today in a big, big, big way,” Schaeffer said. “Attacking the strike zone, being efficient with all of his pitches, no fear. Bellozo [is] the hero of the game for us.”<\/p>\n
What additionally harmed the Rockies was the lack of offense. Only five hits on the day, while falling victim to 15 strikeouts on the day, 9 of them coming from Phillies star Aaron Nola.<\/p>\n
“He worked down in the zone with the fastball a little more,” said Rockies catcher and 2025 Silver Slugger Hunter Goodman. “He uses the top a little bit more in his typical outings, but he did a good job today; it kept us off-balance.”<\/p>\n
The day wasn’t without positives: on 2026 Opening Day for Coors Field and baseball in Denver, 48,366 fans flowed into the stadium to check out the team.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Despite the loss, the fanfare was alive and well throughout the park, including a flyover by several fighter jets and the Rockies mascot Dinger making his way through the stadium to greet fans, all with the understanding that this game was just game seven out of 162.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DENVER – The fanfare and festivities of the Colorado Rockies’ 2026 home opener against the Philadelphia Phillies fell…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":665761,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2405],"tags":[5,1207,167,52,4316,1009,2092,81,19,371,4,1406,25,168,1953,84787,35102],"class_list":{"0":"post-665760","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-colorado-rockies","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-bryce-harper","10":"tag-colorado","11":"tag-colorado-rockies","12":"tag-coloradorockies","13":"tag-coors-field","14":"tag-hunter-goodman","15":"tag-kyle-schwarber","16":"tag-major-league-baseball","17":"tag-michael-lorenzen","18":"tag-mlb","19":"tag-opening-day","20":"tag-philadelphia-phillies","21":"tag-rockies","22":"tag-valente-bellozo","23":"tag-warren-schaffer","24":"tag-wyoming"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116355658356447834","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665760","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=665760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665760\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/665761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=665760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=665760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=665760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}