Brutal start sets the Rockies on a path toward an ignominious record

A harbinger of better things? Colorado Rockies reliever Juan Mejía has collected five strikeouts in four innings, appearing in four games including his debut on April 24. (Instagram via rockies)

By Eno Sarris / The Athletic

April couldn’t have ended any sooner for the Colorado Rockies.

Five wins and 25 losses through the first full month of the season (add to that a win and four more losses through Wednesday), nine of those losses by four runs or more. They were tied for the worst start over 29 games in league history. They allowed the second-most runs in baseball, which might have been expected, but they also scored at a worse pace.

Nothing has seemed to go right.

But was the Rockies’ first month of play a significant stink when compared with all the worst months that have ever been had by a baseball team? Or just another terrible month in the history of baseball, not even noteworthy for how bad it was? How does it look under the hood?

For our purposes, we will treat March and April as one month, which is a standard in statistical circles because of the variability of opening day, and the off days in April that usually produce about 30 games in March and April combined.

We will start with the run differential, which is a great indicator of the underlying health of a team. Opponents scored a whopping 77 more runs than the Rockies in March and April. For comparison, the Miami Marlins’ opponents outscored them by 51 runs for the second-worst start.

If the Rockies keep up this pace, they will be the worst team since home plate was changed to its current shape in 1900, with a whopping 415 run difference between runs scored and runs allowed. The worst modern-day team was the 1932 Boston Red Sox, with a 345 full-year difference, and they won only 43 games and finished 64 games behind champion New York Yankees.

But this is just one month. And there have been many worse months, even by this measure. According to STATS Perform, 39 teams have seen worse months than the Rockies since 1950. But that was the 40th worst month by run differential out of 11,238 team months in that time frame, so we will keep them in the running for worst month ever.

Don’t blame the pitching. Sure, the Rockies’ 5.30 team ERA after March and April was unsightly, and their best pitcher by wins above replacement (Kyle Freeland) had an ERA nearing 6. But this is only a couple of points worse than the Miami Marlins’ ERA through the first month, and it’s nowhere near the 1996 Detroit Tigers and 1999 Rockies, who had ERAs that started with a 6 for the full season.

Apologies to Felipe Lira, Omar Olivares and José Lima, but that Tigers team faced more batters than any other team ever did and is widely regarded as the worst staff of all time. By the time you adjust the ERA number for this year’s Rockies by park and league effects, Colorado is only in the bottom 6% or so of pitching staffs judged by a full year, and, of course, there have been many worse single months.

The hitting, on the other hand? Through April, the Rockies were 36% worse than league average by weighted runs created plus, an overall offensive stat with park and league adjustments. They were striking out more than any other team in the big leagues, and they were doing that with a below-average walk rate and below-average slugging.

On May 1, if the season were over, the Rockies would have the worst park- and league-adjusted offense in modern baseball history — worse even than the second year of the expansion New York Mets in 1963, who gave Al Moran 370 plate appearances to hit one homer and hit .193. Again, though, when it comes to one month, the 2003 Mets spent September at 47% worse than league average as the worst team in the past 23 years. Mo Vaughn and José Reyes could not save them.

It all boils down to wins and losses in the end. And, of course, things were a slog there too, with the Rockies winning a paltry five games through April. When it comes to win percentages among teams that played at least 22 games in a statistical month, the Rockies are in rare air: According to STATS Perform, they are the 20th worst team by win percentage, counting April and March as one month.

It probably won’t keep going like this. Things tend to even out. The Rockies probably won’t go to the playoffs, but they probably won’t make history as the worst team ever, either.

The 1988 Baltimore Orioles started the season 1-22 but went 53-85 the rest of the way; the 1982 Minnesota Twins went 3-26 in May and ended up with 60 wins; and the 2003 Tigers managed only 43 wins after starting the year 3-21.

Last year’s Chicago White Sox are the exception among the teams with one spectacularly bad month: They went 3-22 in July and finished the year with the most losses in modern MLB history.

If Colorado’s bats don’t wake up, they will challenge those White Sox for the worst team in modern history. That would be a feat.