When the Rockies and White Sox play one another, does anybody truly win?

New York Times

17 hours ago

DENVER – Question after question went by in Chicago White Sox manager Will Venable's pregame scrum, but the elephant in the room — obvious to everyone, including the manager of the reigning worst team in baseball history — wasn't immediately addressed.
How exciting is Colson Montgomery's call-up? How will you shuffle the infield? Could his minor league struggles benefit him long-term?
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That kind of day-to-day minutiae can obscure the bigger picture, distract from those once-in-a-baseball-lifetime moments: That this weekend in Denver, as the White Sox faced the Rockies, baseball's official worst team ever was facing its upstart challenger, the club desperately vying to avoid taking its crown.
'It should be a highlight on SportsCenter,' joked veteran Rockies infielder Kyle Farmer. 'This is the World Series for the two worst teams.'
The White Sox spiraled to 121 losses in 2024 — the most by any big league team, ever. On the back of a schedule populated by three double-digit losing streaks, they broke a 62-year-old record of losing futility. It was so bad that their reclusive owner released a statement, effectively apologizing for how putrid they were.
And yet here they were in Colorado, staring across the field at a team that might somehow be worse. A team nearly 50 games under .500, on pace to lose even more than the White Sox did last year. Against the backdrop of Fourth of July, the two worst current incarnations of America's pastime played a weekend series on America's birthday.
This series, for the White Sox, was a measuring stick. It was one more important than any singular prospect call-up. It was a chance to find out whether they could pity their opponents for repeating their plight, or remain stuck in that darkness with them.
In his press conference, Venable fielded one final question before the start of the series. Was there any motivation to pass the buck onto their opponents? To tag them, and cement a new pecking order among the very worst, perhaps absolving the White Sox of some of that burden in the process?
'It's a Major League Baseball team,' said Venable, his team's own poor record making any sort of boast almost impossible. '[one] that I think has more wins than we do over the last five weeks.'
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Chicago at 30-60, is not a good team. But this weekend they were good enough to take 2-of-3 from the 21-69 Rockies, who are on pace to lose 124 games and take the title of worst team ever off the White Sox after just a year on the throne.
This series served as a lot of things. A punch line, for one. But also a barometer, for two clubs with a lot in common. For the White Sox, it served as a way to help put 2024 behind them, to cement themselves as better than the worst.
'We feel like we're in a much better place than we were a year ago,' said White Sox general manager Chris Getz. 'We've got some pieces we believe in, with some of the players we've brought in from trades or guys that have come up.
'We feel like we're headed in the right direction. Do we feel like we're knocking on the door of where we want to be? We do not. But we wanted to clearly define some objectives.'
And for the Rockies? Colorado too is selling the concept of growth. After a 10-16 June, there's at least evidence they're playing better.
On May 8, they lost a doubleheader by a combined score of 22-3. Two days later, they lost 21-0, at home, to the Padres. A day after that, they fired longtime manager Bud Black. Interim manager Warren Schaeffer has tried to establish an identity based on small ball, analytics and improved team chemistry.
'The players that you have, you have to maximize what is in them, and use them accordingly,' Schaeffer said. 'That might look a little different than it did before. But that's a good thing, because we're progressing.
But still, five pitches into Saturday's game, Rockies right fielder Yanquiel Fernandez awkwardly dove for a ball that he had no chance to catch. He lay on the grass as the ball trickled past him and Chicago's Lenyn Sosa took an extra base.
It is bad baseball, being played by a bad team. After Rockies catcher Austin Nola dropped a pop-up right in front of the plate on Sunday, a stadium worker watching on television looked around and said, 'That's been the entire season.'
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Even against arguably the most beautiful backdrop in baseball — a big part of the reason a beleaguered fanbase still shows up in surprising numbers — the product remains ugly. The record speaks for itself, for both the White Sox and their counterparts.
Minutes before Game 1 on Friday night, the public address announcer's 'Let's play ball' permeated the warm holiday evening.
For a game and a series like this, it was a statement that sounded as much like a threat as it did a rallying cry.
Most teams tout their marquee players in their team store – the Ohtanis, Trouts, and Judges, or if they don't quite have those, the closest thing: A budding All-Star like Kyle Stowers, or a name player like Carlos Correa.
Prominently displayed in the Rockies' in-stadium team store? A Zac Veen jersey.
Veen is in Triple-A, and has been since April 23. A former top infield prospect who was drafted No. 9 overall in 2020, Veen has battled injuries for much of his professional career. His only big league experience is twelve games in April, where he hit .118 over 34 at-bats.
The Rockies are a team devoid of marketable star talent. Their highest-paid player, Kris Bryant, has hardly seen the field in the first four years of his doomed seven-year contract. Their farm system is ranked 23rd out of 30, according to The Athletic's Keith Law. This simply isn't a roster that carries gravitas.
'We're playing a lot of young kids,' said Rockies general manager Bill Schmidt. 'We're going to continue to grow with these guys.'
That was a common refrain from Schmidt as he talked about his team. But the Rockies aren't actually playing a ton of kids. Their lineup on Saturday and Sunday featured only four pre-arbitration eligible players, and three of their five starting pitchers have been in the rotation since at least 2017.
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Kyle Freeland, one of those pitchers, is among Colorado's longest-tenured players. When things got particularly bad earlier this season, he emotionally leveled with everyone: 'What they're doing is right, what we're doing is wrong. We're playing a bad brand of baseball.'
'The truth hurts sometimes,' Freeland said, reflecting on his comments two months later. 'If you're gonna be a man about it, and wear it on the chin … it's the only way you're gonna get out of it.'
The White Sox did just that, and have begun to leverage their failures into young talent. They have a farm system that boasted five Top 100 prospects coming into this season.
Colorado seems more firmly entrenched in their anguish. Not winning, but also, seemingly not building. They've regularly been reticent to deal at the deadline, and there was no commitment from Schmidt when asked if they'd be more aggressive at the end of this month.
'We've been open to trades,' Schmidt said. 'What we thought was better for our value, didn't line up. There's always a story behind everything. We'll be open. There are some guys that we'll talk about.'
During his pregame scrum before the series opener, Schaeffer made a notable comment when he said, 'I don't like stagnant, hate stagnant,' in the context of him shifting the clubhouse environment.
Stagnation is the exact criticism most often levied against the franchise this 40-year-old Rockies lifer now prominently represents. Be it the lack of trades, full-scale rebuilds or changes in leadership.
'I understand we're in a pit right now,' Schaeffer said. 'And there's a ways to go. But also, when you're in a pit, it provides a lot of opportunity to look at yourself, everybody in the organization, and see, 'How can we push forward? How can we change things? How can we get out of the stagnation of losing?'
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About 90 minutes before the second of the Rockies' two weekend losses, Rockies fan Bailey Meyer was in his seat, alone, purple jersey on, City Connect team cap atop his head, glove in his hand.
It's well-documented that the Coors Field crowds remain sturdy, win or lose. Both Friday and Saturday night were sold out. They came for the incredible postgame fireworks show, the $3 pregame beers on the upper deck, the temperate weather, beautiful sunset and picturesque venue.
When the 3-2 Colorado loss wrapped on Friday, there were no boos or cheers — just a rush from fans in the bleachers to find good seating on the outfield grass.
Meyer, however, came for the baseball, and the team he's rooted for since childhood.
'We're right on their tail to break the record,' Meyer said. 'I told a couple friends, 'It's bad versus bad. Maybe something good will come out of it.''
The 10-3 Rockies loss on Saturday clinched their 17th consecutive series defeat at home. They allowed 15 hits to the team with the sport's worst batting average.
Already in the series, they'd stranded 13 runners, scored just five runs, committed a catcher's interference and been picked off.
It was ugly, awful, and yet, not at all surprising.
'What are the positive storylines from the night?' one member of the Rockies' media contingent asked out loud after the game, while poring over a printed box score.
Tyler Freeman had a good night, she noted. A slumping Brenton Doyle had broken out with a pinch-hit homer, she said. But those barely qualify as silver linings. These are the Rockies — why search for something encouraging at all?
'You gotta look for the positives,' the reporter said, 'or it's too grim to contemplate.'
The Rockies are headed down that grim path — full speed ahead to baseball's worst-ever record. They will need to go 21-51 to beat Chicago's 2025 mark.
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The White Sox remember these types of calculations all too well.
Last season, before the final home series, Getz spoke to a throng of media inside the tunnels of Rate Field in Chicago. He had to be upfront with the fans, and all the people whose eyes peered at him for answers on an abomination of a season. It was painful.
'From a personal level, you hope that they're staying above water,' Getz said this weekend. 'Looking back at last year and enduring that, you've got to take advantage of the situation.
'Sometimes organizations are on the fence, or maybe stuck in a way that, let's call it, alarmingly poor. Hopefully it provides clarity and decisiveness that we need to change.'
White Sox starter Davis Martin made his season debut in the midst of that 21-game losing streak. He pitched well in his return from Tommy John surgery, with a replacement level ERA+. Still, the team went just 1-10 in his starts.
Losing typically makes a team irrelevant. Losing this much, however, can draw in unending scrutiny.
'There are questions asked every day,' Martin said. 'For the last 60 or 70 games, everybody is in the locker room, 'Hey this is where y'all are at.' You're constantly reminded of what your record was. It's tough.'
That is where the Rockies are right now, whether they like it or not. They still have 72 games to change their circumstances, but there is scant evidence to suggest that they will.
'We try to give the cliché answers, like, 'It doesn't matter, we're trying to play baseball,' and stuff,' said longtime Rockies third baseman Ryan McMahon. 'But there's a lot of pride in this room.'
Before the White Sox's record-breaking season, the expansion 1962 Mets held the record with 120 losses. It took decades to break that mark. And now, it might get broken again after just one year. Getz acknowledged that 'you don't just show up and have bad luck and end up with 121 losses.'
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Years of bad processes in modern baseball can heighten the gulf between the good teams and the bad ones. The end result is two teams — the White Sox last year, and the Rockies this year — that face an uncomfortable situation of fighting to avoid these dubious marks.
'If you make a negative goal like, 'We can't lose 100 games' or 'We can't have the worst record of all-time' — if you say, we can't do that, then there are a lot of things you're missing opportunity-wise,' Schaeffer said. 'You have to trust the process, that winning is a byproduct of how you go about your business.
'Chasing wins for a negative goal, you're gonna miss something. I don't agree with that thought process.'
It will ultimately be on those above him if they heed Getz's advice. That they leverage this extreme failure to embrace necessary major change.
Ultimately, much of this falls on Rockies GM Schmidt to address. The questions about stagnation, about the direction of the organization, are his to tackle. Schmidt sat on the top bench in the dugout Friday, watching his team take batting practice about two hours before first pitch. It was a holiday, but it didn't feel festive. He was willing to answer the questions, but that was about it.
When things are this bad, does that mean wholesale changes are needed?
'We're trying to get better,' Schmidt replied. 'We're trying to continue to grow.'
How trying has this season been on you personally?
'We're trying to get better,' he said. 'You keep grinding away at it. Hopefully we get to where we need to go.'
Schmidt has never been one to be publicly introspective about the state of his team, and now, as the Rockies head towards baseball ignominy, outclassed by a team a year removed from its own shameful moment, that was clearly not about to change.
You may have constructed a roster that finishes with the worst record in baseball history. Is that something you're concerned about? Do you think about that?
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'We just try to get better every day,' he said, once again. 'Continue to grow.'
Growth? There will be a time for that. For now, the Rockies hope to avoid a far bleaker fate. And the White Sox move on to play the Toronto Blue Jays, increasingly safe in the knowledge that their time at the historical bottom may be coming to a surprisingly swift end.
(Top photo of Rockies RF Yanquiel Fernandez in Friday's game:)