Rockies Manager Warren Schaeffer Unleashes Frustration After Sloppy Nationals Loss

Just when it looked like the Colorado Rockies were going to avoid a fourth straight 100-loss season, things have hit a big roadblock for manager Warren Schaeffer and his club. After taking two out of three over the San Francisco Giants two weekends ago in Northern California, things have gone downhill fast.

Last week, the Los Angeles Dodgers came to Denver and swept the Rockies. Then, over this past weekend, the struggling Cleveland Guardians came to Coors Field and completed a three-game sweep. Schaeffer, who tried mixing things up over the weekend, hoping that kicking off a road trip in Washington against the equally struggling Nationals on Monday night would be a turning point for his team's struggles.

Not on Monday night.

After grabbing a 2-0 lead halfway through the game, things fell apart for the Rockies in the bottom of the fifth inning, and the Nationals scored 13 runs over their final four at-bats en route to a 13-3 win. Schaeffer didn't mince words after the game.

Rockies Manager Warren Schaeffer Frustrated After Loss To Nationals

Colorado Rockies manager Warren Schaeffer Credit: Ron Chenoy | Imagn Images | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

It wasn't so much that the Rockies gave up five fifth-inning runs, but it was how. Failure to defend bunts and two throwing errors led to five runs, along with three walks and a missed opportunity by shortstop Ezequiel Tovar defensively, which led to a 5-2 Washington lead. That opened the floodgates and Schaeffer wasn't happy. Who could blame him?

“We’ve got to take care of the baseball better than that,” said Schaeffer, per Thomas Harding of MLB.com. “That was an inning that got out of control. This is the big leagues. We need to play better than that.

“Felt, aside from the three walks the first time through, threw the ball really well. Up until that point (the hit Tovar nearly saved and the messy play afterward), he didn’t have a hit. Then the two soft hits, then the E5 on the bunt, kind of spiraled things out of control after that.”

Spiraled out of control, it did. The Nationals played three runs in the sixth, two in the seventh and three in the eighth to rebound after being swept by the Miami Marlins in South Florida over the weekend.

The loss dropped the Rockies to 50-81 with 31 games remaining and they need to go 13-18 to avoid another triple-loss season. If they are going to do that, they need to clean up their defense, something that Schaeffer made a point of addressing in his postgame press conference.

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