Eli Whitney | March 30, 2026

The 2026 Colorado Rockies opened their season the way last year’s team ended it – with a loss. Then another. Then another. A three-game sweep in Miami to start the year is a tough pill to swallow, regardless of expectations. In two of the three games, the Rockies held a lead and couldn’t protect it. All three were decided by one run. They are 0-3, heading to Toronto with real questions to answer. 

Game 1 – March 27: Marlins 2, Rockies 1

Kyle Freeland took the ball for a record fifth Opening Day start and kept the Rockies competitive – but Sandy Alcantara was simply better. Freeland allowed two runs in the second inning – an Owen Caissie double that scored Xavier Edwards, followed by a Javier Sanoja single that plated Caissie – and that was all Miami needed. 

Alcantara was dominant, holding Colorado to one run on four hits across seven innings with five strikeouts. The Rockies’ lone run came in the fourth inning in the most convoluted way possible.

Jake McCarthy reached on a bunt single and stole second. On Hunter Goodman’s single to right that followed, McCarthy tried to score – and was thrown out at the plate by Austin Slater. The rally wasn’t dead, though. An error from Sanoja kept things alive, TJ  Rumfield walked to load the bases, and Jordan Beck beat out an infield single to score Willi Castro for the game’s only Colorado run.

That was it.

The bullpen – Jimmy Herget, Brennan Bernardino, and Juan Mejia – combined to allow just three hits across 3.2 scoreless innings after Freeland departed, but the offense managed nothing after the fourth. Beck was caught stealing in the seventh. Rumfield singled in the ninth off of Pete Fairbanks for his first career hit, but the Rockies couldn’t bring him home.

Colorado went 2-for-4 with runners in scoring position, but both hits came in the same inning. Outside of that fourth inning, the offense was largely absent.

Game 2 – March 28: Marlins 4, Rockies 3

Saturday started with a statement. Rumfield put Colorado on the board in the second with his first career homerun off Eury Pérez – a 106.6 MPH shot to right center that traveled 423 feet. Ezequiel Tovar followed in the fourth with a two-run homer to give the Rockies a 3-1 lead. For a moment, it looked like Colorado might secure its first win of the new campaign.

It unraveled in the fifth. Starting pitcher Michael Lorenzen had navigated trouble earlier in the game – he hit two batters and allowed a sacrifice fly in the third – but Liam Hicks ended his day with a two-run homer to tie it at three. Lorenzen’s final line: 4.1 innings, seven hits, three runs, zero walks, and four strikeouts. Bernardino and Zach Agnos came out of the bullpen and managed to keep it tied through the seventh. 

The eighth inning was where it fell apart. Otto Lopez singled to lead off, stole second, and scored when Caissie singled to center. Jaden Hill took the loss. Colorado went quietly against Fairbanks in the ninth – Rumfield fouled out, Ryan Ritter struck out, and Brenton Doyle flew out. 

The Rockies went 0-for-4 with runners in scoring position.

Game 3 – March 29: Marlins 4, Rockies 3

The Rockies had their best chance to salvage something from the series and squandered it in the most painful way possible – a walk-off homerun in the ninth after leading wire to wire. Beck’s first-inning double cleared the bases – Goodman, Castro, and Rumfield had all reached prior – and Colorado had a 3-0 lead before the Marlins even had the chance to swing the bats. 

Jose Quintana made his Rockies debut and kept it respectable, but the Marlins chipped away. As Lopez scored Jacob Marsee in the first and a Slater sacrifice fly in the second made it 3-2 in the Marlins’ favor. Quintana departed after 78 pitches with the lead intact. 

Herget, Antonio Senzatela, and Victor Vodnik combined to keep Miami off the board through the eighth, including Vodnik stranding runners at every base with his strikeout of Heriberto Hernandez to finish the eighth.

The lead held going into the ninth. 

Then it didn’t.

Vodnik got Hicks to line into a double play to start the ninth, but Sanoja had a two-out double that flew over McCarthy’s head, and Caissie walked it off with a two-run homer to right center. The Rockies finished 1-for-12 with runners in scoring position. 

The Series in Full 

If there’s one reason that the Rockies got swept, it was the inability to get the big hit. Beck led the team with 4 RBIs. Goodman went 4-for-12. Tovar and Rumfield each had home runs. Kyle Karros managed to put together quality at-bats.

Everyone else was largely quiet. 

McCarthy went 1-for-11, Doyle went 0-for-11. Castro went 2-for-11. The bats consistently fell silent at the wrong times. The Rockies went 3-for-20 with runners in scoring position. 

On the mound, the starters combined for a 4.85 ERA across 13 innings. The bullpen was the better unit this weekend, but also gave up the decisive run in each of the final two games. 

What It Means 

Three one-run losses to open a season is a specific kind of frustration. The Rockies weren’t blown out. They weren’t embarrassed. Still, they held leads in two games and couldn’t close either of them out. Converting leads into wins is a skill, and this team hasn’t proven it can do it yet. 

The aggressive baserunning philosophy showed up and backfired at key moments – McCarthy was thrown out at the plate with no outs in a game the Rockies ended up losing by one run. There is a line between smart aggression and costly mistakes, and the Rockies were on the wrong side of it when it mattered.

The offense needs more from the top/middle of the order. Doyle, Castro, and McCarthy combined to go 3-for-33 across the three games. That can’t continue. 

The Rockies head to Toronto next to face the defending American League Champions. Things don’t get easier.

Written by Eli Whitney.