Hunter Goodman Makes History While the Colorado Rockies Start Their Deadline Sell-Off

The Colorado Rockies came out of the All-Star break with six games at Coors Field and a chance to build a little momentum against two beatable opponents. Instead, they went 2-4, dropped series to the Reds and the Nationals, and reminded everybody why the front office is spending late July answering trade calls instead of making them. And yet the week wasn't a total slog: Hunter Goodman did something no player in franchise history had ever done, TJ Rumfield had the game of his life, and the club quietly started its deadline sell-off by shipping a hard-throwing reliever to, of all places, Los Angeles. It was a very Rockies week — flashes of real talent wrapped in losses.

The Week That Was: Colorado Rockies Drop Two Series at Coors

Thursday was the last quiet day of the break, and Friday's return went sideways fast. Cincinnati took the opener 7-2 behind Brady Singer's seven strong innings, with Spencer Steer homering twice — including an inside-the-park job in the eighth when a fly ball took a weird carom off the right-center wall and the relay skipped away from Goodman at the plate. Rookie Gabriel Hughes actually pitched well, striking out six over 5 1/3 innings and allowing just two runs, but the offense managed only a Willi Castro solo shot and a Troy Johnston sacrifice fly.

Saturday was the good day. The Rockies hung 10 on the Reds, staking Tomoyuki Sugano to a seven-run lead after three innings. Rumfield went 4 for 5 — a career best — with a 456-foot two-run homer and four RBI, and Sugano, back from a 15-day IL stint for his balky back, cruised into the seventh without walking anybody. Sunday undid it. On a 98-degree afternoon, Cincinnati jumped Ryan Feltner for an 8-1 lead after two innings, Tyler Stephenson homered twice, and the Reds survived Goodman's three-homer day to win 9-6 and take the series.

The Washington series followed the same script. Monday, Andres Chaparro's first-inning three-run homer set the tone in a 7-3 Nationals win; Castro tied it with a three-run double, but Kyle Freeland gave back the lead and fell to 2-9. Tuesday brought the week's best baseball — an 8-7 slugfest the Rockies won when Goodman crushed a tiebreaking homer in the eighth and Jordan Romano struck out two in a clean ninth for his seventh save. Wednesday, Cade Cavalli and the Nationals ended the homestand with an 8-0 thud. Hughes matched zeros with Cavalli for four innings, but a six-run seventh — featuring two Colorado errors on a single play — turned a tight game into a rout.

Hunter Goodman Is Rewriting the Rockies Record Book

Let's give the catcher his section. Goodman's Sunday included two homers off Hunter Greene and a third off reliever Sam Moll, and it was his second three-homer game of the season — he also did it June 27 at Minnesota. No player in Colorado Rockies history had ever posted two three-homer games in one year. Then on Tuesday he hit the go-ahead shot in the eighth off Clayton Beeter, his 31st of the season, matching his entire 2025 total with more than two months still to play. That's four home runs in a six-game week from an All-Star catcher who is quickly becoming the one untouchable piece on the roster.

He had company. Rumfield's four-hit Saturday was the loudest game of his career. Jake McCarthy doubled in each of the last two games and carried a 17-game on-base streak out of the week while hitting .307 with 17 steals on the season. Mickey Moniak stayed scorching in July and hit his 16th homer Tuesday, briefly giving Colorado the lead. On the mound, Sugano improved to 9-4 — remarkable bookkeeping for a team 22 games under .500 — and Hughes struck out 11 across his two starts this week with a sub-3.00 ERA in his young big-league career, even if the win column (0-2) hasn't noticed.

Where the Colorado Rockies Stand in the NL West

The record sits at 41-63 after Wednesday, which is last in the NL West, 24.5 games behind the 65-38 Dodgers and a couple back of the fourth-place Giants. It's also the worst record in the majors. But context matters in Denver, and the context is this: last year's team lost 119 games. At the 100-game mark on Saturday, the Rockies were on pace for roughly 65 wins, which would be the largest year-over-year improvement in franchise history over two full-length seasons. They're three wins from matching all of 2025, and they need to go 23-39 the rest of the way to avoid a fourth straight 100-loss season. That's a genuinely reachable bar. Progress at 20th and Blake is measured in strange units, but it is measurable.

The Halvorsen Trade and the Injury Report

The sell-off started early. On Monday, Colorado traded reliever Seth Halvorsen — currently on the 15-day injured list with shoulder inflammation — to the Dodgers for minor-league right-hander Nick Frasso and outfield prospect Landyn Vidourek. Halvorsen averages nearly 100 mph on his fastball and comes with five-plus years of control, so dealing him inside the division stings a bit, but the command never came together in Denver and the return adds two live bodies to a farm system Baseball America recently ranked 28th.

The health picture, meanwhile:

• Brenton Doyle (groin) was cleared Wednesday to resume his rehab assignment — the best injury news of the week.
• Jose Quintana (elbow sprain, 60-day IL) has progressed to playing catch.
• Chase Dollander remains out long-term after the internal-brace elbow procedure he underwent in June.
• Kris Bryant (back) is still not participating in baseball activities.
• Jeff Criswell came off the shelf, recalled from Triple-A Albuquerque on Saturday after his shoulder strain.

Deadline Watch: The Phones Are Busy

Per a report from Ken Rosenthal and Will Sammon of The Athletic, the Rockies are fielding calls on just about everyone: pending free-agent starters Freeland, Michael Lorenzen and Sugano, plus controllable position players Moniak, McCarthy and Castro. Antonio Senzatela — reborn as a reliever with a 3.60 ERA and a fastball averaging 97.3 mph — is reportedly drawing interest too. The Astros have been connected to both McCarthy and Moniak, per the same reporting. To be clear, these are reports of interest, not deals in place, and the starters won't fetch much given their ERAs. But McCarthy and Moniak are having legitimately good seasons on cheap contracts, and if the front office is serious about restocking the farm, the week before July 31 is when Colorado Rockies news could get genuinely interesting.

What's Next for the Rockies

The schedule sends them on the road for five games:

• July 24-26: three at Milwaukee, with Sugano (9-4, 4.76) getting Friday's opener — possibly a showcase start.
• July 28-29: a quick two-game set at San Diego against a Padres club fighting for a playoff spot.
• July 31-Aug. 2: back home against Kansas City, opening a homestand on deadline day itself.

Watch three things: whether Doyle's rehab assignment puts him on track to rejoin the outfield soon, which veterans are still wearing purple pinstripes when the Royals arrive, and whether Goodman keeps mashing his way toward franchise history. The Colorado Rockies aren't playing for October, but the next ten days will shape what this rebuild actually looks like — every McCarthy double and Senzatela radar reading is now an audition someone else is scouting. For a last-place team, there's a surprising amount worth watching.