Rockies routed by Padres, tie franchise record with 103rd loss of season

Come hell or high water, or 103 losses and counting, Warren Schaeffer believes in his process.

Before falling 8-1 to the Padres on Sunday afternoon at Coors Field, the Rockies’ interim manager spoke passionately about the team he’s trying to build. The discussion centered around the Rockies’ flirtation with baseball infamy.

The White Sox lost a modern-era record 121 games last season, and earlier this season, it looked like the Rockies would eclipse that mark. That’s not going to happen — the Rockies are 40-103 with 19 games left and need just two wins — but Schaeffer doesn’t care about dodging dark baseball history.

“I refuse to believe that 41 wins is a success, because it’s not,” he said. “A World Series is a success — next year, the following year, the following year. So, 41 wins this year as opposed to 40 wins? It’s completely asinine to me. It doesn’t make any sense to me at all.”

While Colorado won’t set a major league record for failure, it sits on the doorstep of franchise infamy after Sunday’s loss. The Padres smacked four home runs and clinched the three-game series, while the Rockies’ 103rd loss tied the club record for most losses in a season set in 2023.

Asked how many times he’s spoken to his team about the mounting losses or skirting the White Sox’s record, Schaefer put his index finger and thumb together, signifying zero.

“I hate negative goals,” he said. “That doesn’t make sense to me — at all. Not even one bit. We have an opportunity, in the scenario we are in, to get the guys better and to push forward, organizationally.

“Wins and losses will take care of themselves, based on the process. … If you concentrate on how many games you lose, or winning a certain amount of game so we don’t break some sort of record, that’s a losing mentality for me. And I will never, ever embody that. Ever. I will not do that. You are missing out on opportunities to get young guys better.”

The Padres, meanwhile, are playing in a different baseball universe. They improved to 78-65 and remained one game behind the Dodgers in the race for the National League West title.

Win or (mostly) lose, the Rockies have made a habit of staging comebacks late in games during the second half of the season. There was none of that on a perfect September afternoon at the ballpark. San Diego took an early lead against starter Tanner Gordon and piled on from there.

The Padres had 15 hits, the Rockies six, with just two over the last six innings. Colorado scratched out its only run off right-hander Dylan Cease in the third, combining a bloop double by Orlando Arcia with an RBI single by Ezequiel Tovar.