DENVER -- At a time when the Rockies desperately needed something to go right, third baseman Ryan McMahon’s glove -- one that could be Gold one day -- gave way in the third inning of Thursday afternoon’s 11-1 loss to the Tigers in the second game of a doubleheader.
If the 10-2 first-game loss was straightforward misery, the second game teased something better until the Rockies were overtaken by the type of calamity that a team suffers from during a 6-31 start that ranks among the worst of all time.
Holding a 1-0 lead, Rockies starting pitcher Tanner Gordon faced a bases-loaded situation, partly because a Brewer Hicklen bouncer that could have become a double play ticked off his glove.
However, Gordon did his job by forcing Kerry Carpenter into a grounder to McMahon, a four-time Gold Glove finalist.
McMahon did his job -- until the webbing of his glove malfunctioned.
That’s right. The ball split the webbing and landed a few feet from McMahon. McMahon scrambled and tried to tag the lead runner, Dillon Dingler, who had gone past the bag, to no avail. Everyone was safe on the play, which was initially ruled a single but was changed to an error following the game.
“The smash to ‘Mac’ … good stop,” Rockies manager Bud Black said. “Web broke.”
McMahon’s glove giving way was unusual, but not unique.
On Aug. 21, 2022, McMahon saw the ball go through his glove as he attempted to field a grounder from Thairo Estrada, then of the Giants and now on the Rockies’ injured list. The play, on which McMahon was charged with an error, led to a two-run inning during the Rockies’ 9-8 loss at Coors Field.
And what occurred after McMahon’s glove split on Thursday was what has happened regularly to the Rockies, whose start to 2025 is among the worst since 1900. Gleyber Torres doubled to clear the still-loaded bases, and the Tigers were en route to a six-run inning.
Called up from Triple-A Albuquerque as the 27th man for the doubleheader, Gordon shook off the inning and lasted 6 1/3 innings. He was charged with seven runs (four earned), but left with an important pat on the back. A Rockies bullpen that had to absorb six innings in the first game had to absorb less in the nightcap thanks to him.
“He hung in there, kept the ball down after [the third] -- changeup, slider, fastball, in and out and a couple at the top,” Black said of Gordon. “He did, for most of the game, what we thought he could -- put up some zeroes, which we needed.”
Misfortune didn’t stop with McMahon’s play.
The Rockies trailed, 6-1, with the bases loaded in the third. Michael Toglia, coming off a big performance in Wednesday night’s 8-6, 10-inning loss, pounded a Keider Montero pitch into the dirt that came to a rest a foot or so from home plate. Dingler, the catcher, accepted the gift, stepped on the plate and threw out Toglia for a rally-killing double play.
“That would have been nice to have a ball in the gap to get it to 6-3 or 6-4 with one out and a couple more guys in scoring position,” Black said. “It just didn’t happen.”
Offense didn’t happen all day for Colorado.
The minus-18 run differential was tied with a home sweep at the hands of the Giants (19-2, 2-1) on July 15, 2019 for the largest in a doubleheader in club history. Thursday and the aforementioned Giants losses also are tied for the least runs, three, put up by a Colorado team in a home doubleheader.
Whether wood or leather, nothing worked for the Rockies on Thursday.