Rockies May Report Card: From Hopeful to Hopeless in One Month

There's no hiding that the Colorado Rockies had a terrible May.

Colorado Rockies manager Warren Schaeffer (4) pulls relief pitcher Brennan Bernardino (83) in the seventh inning against the Los Angeles Dodgers. | Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images

For a brief moment, it appeared that the Colorado Rockies were going to prove people wrong. March and April saw the team emerge as a competent operation with flashy offensive weapons and a stalwart bullpen. At just four games under .500, the Rockies were well ahead of the pace they set last season, meaning that massive improvement could be on the horizon.

And then the calendar flipped to May, and misery ensued.

The Rockies went 8-20 in May, winning just one series while being embarrassed in the vast majority of the rest. It was a month of baseball that reminded Rockies fans of the tumultuous times of 2025, when everything went wrong and absolutely no hope appeared to be on the horizon.

Why was May so bad? What changed after the optimal start to the campaign? Let's grade each aspect of the Rockies' operation for May, analyzing why everything took a sudden turn for the worse.

Pitching Staff: F

Colorado Rockies starting pitcher Michael Lorenzen. | Ron Chenoy-Imagn Images

When it comes to Colorado, everything starts and ends with the pitching staff. If the arms are effective, then victories seem to follow. If not, then disaster is not far away.

Rockies pitchers accumulated an abysmal 6.77 ERA throughout the month of May. Opposing hitters slashed .311/.372/.530 against the team. There really isn't much more to be said than that — it was just flat-out bad.

While the starting pitching has always been lackluster in 2026, the bullpen came out of the gates hot. But injuries and other factors have led to that group regressing, too, leaving the Rockies up a creek without a paddle.

There is little in the way of preventing opposing teams from scoring runs at will against the Rockies at the moment, something that must end soon if the club is going to have any sort of dignity by the time the All-Star break arrives.

Yeah, it was not a good month on the mound in Denver. If this were an actual college class, then that group would've flunked so hard that it's difficult to imagine a school allowing it back into its good graces.

Offense: D

Colorado Rockies catcher Hunter Goodman. | Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images

Meanwhile, the offense was also not performing up to snuff.

Playing half its games in the hitting heaven that is Coors Field, it's reasonable to believe that runs would come in bunches for the Rockies. Think not, as the team slashed just .235/.301/.363 in May with 23 home runs and 106 RBIs. All those numbers are down from what it put up in March and April.

It's admittedly difficult for the Rockies to pull out wins when the pitchers give up monstrous amounts of runs day in and day out. But the lineup still needs to pull its weight, something it just didn't do in May.

Can June Bring Better Days?

June has already started, and the Rockies are off to a nice start with two wins over the Los Angeles Angels. If the first couple of days of this month are any indication of the future, then it appears that Colorado has figured some things out. The more likely answer is that the Angels, another miserable operation, are just not a good baseball team and the Rockies are taking advantage.

Either way, May was just not a fun time in Denver. June needs to be better.