The Cubs and Rockies will play their entire season series over the next 10 days, three this week at Coors Field and three next week at Wrigley Field.
Wait. Didn’t we just say that about the Giants? (Yes, we did.)
Thanks, schedule-makers.
For more on the Rockies, here’s Samantha Bradfield, manager of our SB Nation Rockies site Purple Row.
The Colorado Rockies are coming off a historically bad 2025 campaign that saw them finish 43-119 — only two shy of breaking the loss record set by the Chicago White
Sox just one year earlier. But at the end of the season, they decided they didn’t want to live through that again and completely revamped their entire front office.
They reportedly interviewed multiple external candidates and just when it seemed like they were going to zig again, they zagged – hiring Paul DePodesta (of “Moneyball” fame) to be their president of baseball operations on November 7. It was a head scratcher at the time, given that DePodesta had spent the last decade in the NFL with the Cleveland Browns, but so far things have been going alright. Just before Thanksgiving, Warren Schaeffer was retained as the manager, and Los Angeles Dodgers assistant GM Josh Byrnes was hired into the head role with the Rockies.
Throughout the offseason, the Rockies kept busy. They added to their front office and coaching staff, snagging folks mostly from the Dodgers and New York Mets. Perhaps the most intriguing hire was Miami Marlins’ assistant pitching coach Alon Leichman, who has continued experimenting with “pitch suggesting” from the dugout and expanding the pitchers’ arsenals.
In addition to the new coaching staff, they also brought in veteran reinforcements to provide stability while giving their prospects more time to develop in the minors – something they haven’t been able to do because the MLB team was a mess and premature promotion was out of necessity.
Most notably, they signed three veteran starting pitchers: Michael Lorenzen, Tomoyuki Sugano (菅野 智之), and José Quintana (who is on the 60-day IL after suffering an elbow injury over Memorial Day weekend against the Arizona Diamondbacks).
They also signed veteran infielder Willi Castro and traded for Dbacks’ outfielder Jake McCarthy. Additionally, they cut bait with a lot of players once touted as part of the team’s future: LHP Ryan Rolison (now with the Cubs), 1B Michael Toglia, and C Drew Romo (now with the White Sox) (among others).
But enough about their crazy offseason! Let’s talk about what’s been happening during the season.
The Rockies are 24-42 which, by raw numbers, isn’t great.
They started off relatively hot, going 14-18 in March and April. Considering they didn’t notch their 14th win until June 15 last year, it was a substantial improvement. The pitching was locked down, the offense was clicking more, and just overall things seemed better.
However, they hit a brick wall in May — going just 8-20 and being outscored 190-114. They lost their two top starting pitchers – Quintana and Chase Dollander — to long-term elbow injuries. They also lost all three of their primary outfielders – Brenton Doyle, Jordan Beck and Mickey Moniak — to injuries. Making things worse, the bullpen has blown multiple eighth- or ninth-inning leads.
In March and April, the Rockies experimented with “bulk relievers.” The idea was mostly that a starter like Dollander or Tanner Gordon could pitch out of the bullpen behind an opener and pitch 4-5 innings against a lower part of the lineup and get later into games when a team needed them the most. However, injuries forced them to rethink that plan and they’ve now gone back to a more traditional starter/bullpen setup.
Additionally, the offense got back into some bad habits and started chasing (and therefore striking out) more. They also struggled to make meaningful contact in general. However, some of the youngsters — namely Ezequiel Tovar, Hunter Goodman and Kyle Karros — have started coming around. They also still have reigning NL Rookie of the Month TJ Rumfield, whom they acquired in a trade from the New York Yankees and has proven to be an excellent early-season addition.
In addition to Rumfield, the Rockies have also had some excellent storylines in the early season.
One is OF Mickey Moniak, who was building off of his 2025 career year until he went on the IL two weeks ago with an ankle injury. The second is utilityman Troy Johnston, who snuck onto the Opening Day roster. Johnston is not only known for his production at the plate (less so for his defense) but also for his magnetic personality.
But perhaps the best storyline of the 2026 Rockies is RHP Antonio Senzatela. Senzatela is particularly special because he’s been with the organization since 2017 and after a rough 2025 campaign (as well as 2022, 2023 and 2024), it was unclear if he would even make the 2026 roster. But he has turned into the Rockies’ best pitcher — starter or reliever — after revamping his entire approach with the new coaching staff in the offseason. If you’ve followed the Rockies for as long as we have, watching the “Antonio Senzatela Career Renaissance” has been one of the absolute highlights of the early season.
For the Cubs series, the Rockies will likely roll out Sugano, Lorenzen and Ryan Feltner.
Sugano is in his second year in MLB after spending 11 seasons in the NPB in Japan where he racked up accolade after accolade (move over, Shohei Ohtani!). He has been one of the Rockies’ most consistent starters, posting a 5-4 record and 3.98 ERA in 12 starts. Lorenzen touted himself as a “problem solver” eager to solve Coors Field but has struggled mightily. He has made 14 appearances (13 starts) and has posted a 2-8 record and 8.01 ERA. Feltner was recently activated off the 15-day IL, where he spent five weeks rehabbing from right ulnar nerve inflammation. He’s always had good stuff, but has struggled with injuries in his career. But in two starts back, he has only allowed one run and five hits across 12 innings.
On the Kris Bryant front, he was placed on the 60-day IL in February and hasn’t been heard from since.
There’s still a lot of work to be done — as evidenced by the Jekyll and Hyde nature of the early season — but things are trending in the right direction for the 2026 Colorado Rockies (we hope). It’s a year of experimentation and patience for all of us to see what this team will become once the dust settles. Their motto is “Here for the Climb” and they are certainly trudging through it. We can only hope that they continue trending upward as the season moves along (but they can’t trend much further down than last season).
Fun facts
Tonight’s game will be the Cubs’ first of the season against the Rockies. The game a week from tomorrow will be their last.
The teams will play three games in Denver this week, then three more at Wrigley Field next Monday-Wednesday.
The Cubs have a winning record vs. the Rockies, 122-113, but they are 56-64 at Colorado, where they have been outscored by 50 runs, 756-706. In all 235 games, the Cubs have been outscored by 17 runs, 1,258-1,241.
Last season the Cubs won twice at Denver, then lost the final game, preventing a six-game season sweep of the Rockies. It was the first series they had won at Denver since taking two of three in 2018.
The Cubs swept three games in 2004. Their only earlier sweeps were three games in 1994 and two in 1998.
The Cubs were swept in two games and four games in 1997, then in three games in 2010 and 2012. This will be the 13th series at Denver since either team swept.
(Courtesy BCB’s JohnW53)
Probable pitching matchups
Tuesday: Colin Rea, RHP (5-3, 4.59 ERA, 1.345 WHIP, 4.47 FIP) vs. Tomoyuki Sugano, RHP (5-4, 3.98 ERA, 1.263 WHIP, 5.17 FIP)
Wednesday: Shōta Imanaga, LHP (4-6, 4.74 ERA, 1.079 WHIP, 4.93 FIP) vs. Michael Lorenzen, RHP (2-8, 8.01 ERA, 1.995 WHIP, 5.12 FIP)
Thursday: Edward Cabrera, RHP (3-3, 4.99 ERA, 1.422 WHIP, 4.89 FIP) vs. Ryan Feltner, RHP (2-1, 4.22 ERA, 1.156 WHIP, 4.73 FIP)
Times & TV channels
Tuesday: 7:40 p.m. CT, Marquee Sports Network
Wednesday: 7:40 p.m. CT, Marquee Sports Network
Thursday: 2:10 p.m. CT, Marquee Sports Network
Prediction
The Rockies enter this series with the worst record in MLB, half a game worse than the Angels.
After getting to 14-17 with a win over the Reds April 29, they’re 10-25, also the worst in MLB over that span (the Cubs are 15-20 since April 29). The Rox are slightly better at home than on the road, though they just got swept by the Brewers at Coors Field and have lost 10 of their last 14 overall.
The Cubs need to take two of three here, so I’ll say they will do that.
Up next
The Cubs face the Giants again after losing two of three to them at Wrigley Field, a three-game set in San Francisco beginning Friday evening.
