DENVER (AP) — All the losing nearly reduced lefty Kyle Freeland to tears as he recently chatted about the woeful state of his hometown Colorado Rockies.
It's a gloomy situation with the Rockies off to a 7-33 start — one of the worst in major league history — leading to the dismissal of manager Bud Black on Sunday.
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Colorado Rockies interim manager Warren Schaeffer sits in the dugout before a baseball game against the Texas Rangers, Monday, May 12, 2025, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
Colorado Rockies' Hunter Goodman (15) and Ryan McMahon (24) celebrate after a one-run home run by McMahon in the eighth inning of a baseball game against the San Diego Padres, Sunday, May 11, 2025, in Denver. (AP Photo/Geneva Heffernan)
Colorado Rockies starting pitcher Kyle Freeland reacts after Detroit Tigers' Javier Báez scored on an error during the third inning in the first baseball game of a doubleheader Thursday, May 8, 2025, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
Colorado Rockies interim manager Warren Schaeffer, center, talks in the dugout before a baseball game against the Texas Rangers, Monday, May 12, 2025, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
Colorado Rockies manager Bud Black walks off the field prior to a baseball game against the San Diego Padres, Sunday, May 11, 2025, in Denver. Black was fired as manager immediately following the game. (AP Photo/Geneva Heffernan)
Freeland wears his feelings for his city — to the team he grew up rooting for — on his sleeve. More specifically, his right arm, where there are tattoos of the elevation (5,280), area code (303) and an outline of the mountains. The losses weigh heavily on him.
Change arrived in the Mile High air when Black, the franchise’s winningest manager and the only voice that many of the Rockies players have ever known, was let go.
Now, it’s Warren Schaeffer’s turn to navigate the Rockies away from a season that’s careening toward infamy. The Rockies have the worst start since the 1988 Baltimore Orioles began 6-34. Colorado is on pace for 134 losses a season after the Chicago White Sox went 41-121 — the worst since baseball adopted a 162-game schedule in 1961.
Promoted from third base coach to interim manager, Schaeffer inherits a team that’s second-to-last in runs — despite playing home games at hitter-friendly Coors Field — and first in strikeouts. The pitching staff has surrendered the most runs in the big leagues and fanned the fewest batters.
“It’s on all of our shoulders,” Freeland said of the turnaround. “We need to be better, and we need to continue to progress forward.”
The firing of Black came a day after a 21-0 loss to the San Diego Padres. The news was announced late in a 92-87 loss by the NBA's Denver Nuggets in Game 4 against Oklahoma City at nearby Ball Arena.
Schaeffer brings energy and exuberance to the Rockies clubhouse. He has been Colorado’s third base and infield coach since the 2023 season. Prior to joining the big league team, he spent 10 seasons as a manager and coach in the Rockies’ minor league system.
“A positive atmosphere in the clubhouse, and we’re ready to move forward,” Schaeffer said Monday before the series opener at Texas that marked his debut at interim manager. “I just want them to play loose. From my vantage point, it’s a fresh start."
Relief pitcher Jake Bird, one of several Rockies who played for Schaeffer when he was a minor league manager, described him as a good communicator who is intelligent and passionate.
“Something just feels different. So I'm really feeling optimistic about the direction moving forward,” Bird said. “I think our team’s a lot more capable than what we’ve been playing.”
General manager Bill Schmidt said after the move was made Sunday that the 40-year-old Schaeffer's connection to players was a big part of what he brings to his new role.
“I think just a different voice here — we’re at that point where we needed to do that," Schmidt said.
It’s an uphill climb for the Rockies to avoid a third straight 100-loss season. They have to go 56-66 the rest of the way. They’ve won back-to-back games just once and have three separate eight-game losing streaks.
Freeland was emotional last week after a start on the mound in which he allowed nine runs (five earned).
“Keep believing in us,” Freeland said of his message to Rockies faithful as he choked up.
For infielder Ryan McMahon, it’s about trusting the process.
“I know how to show up and play baseball. That’s the way I’m wired,” McMahon said. “That’s the way a lot of these guys are wired. The record is what it is at this point. It doesn’t affect the game tonight and doesn’t affect the games after that.”
The Rockies haven’t been to the postseason since 2018. Their only World Series appearance was 2007, when they were swept by the Boston Red Sox. Their manager then was Clint Hurdle, who is now the interim bench coach under Schaeffer.
“I’m obviously in a unique situation, being from here. I grew up with the Rockies. It does mean a ton to me," said Freeland, who broke into the majors under Black in 2017. "I’m going to be probably more proud of us as a group getting this (turnaround) done than me being a Denver kid, being able to get this team to a postseason or to a World Series.”
AP Baseball Writer Stephen Hawkins contributed to this report from Arlington, Texas.
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Colorado Rockies interim manager Warren Schaeffer sits in the dugout before a baseball game against the Texas Rangers, Monday, May 12, 2025, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
Colorado Rockies' Hunter Goodman (15) and Ryan McMahon (24) celebrate after a one-run home run by McMahon in the eighth inning of a baseball game against the San Diego Padres, Sunday, May 11, 2025, in Denver. (AP Photo/Geneva Heffernan)
Colorado Rockies starting pitcher Kyle Freeland reacts after Detroit Tigers' Javier Báez scored on an error during the third inning in the first baseball game of a doubleheader Thursday, May 8, 2025, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
Colorado Rockies interim manager Warren Schaeffer, center, talks in the dugout before a baseball game against the Texas Rangers, Monday, May 12, 2025, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
Colorado Rockies manager Bud Black walks off the field prior to a baseball game against the San Diego Padres, Sunday, May 11, 2025, in Denver. Black was fired as manager immediately following the game. (AP Photo/Geneva Heffernan)
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian drones blasted apartment buildings and the power grid in the southern Ukraine city of Odesa in an overnight attack that injured six people, including a toddler and two other children, officials said Wednesday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed confidence in his country’s eventual victory in the nearly four-year war against its neighbor.
Four apartment buildings were damaged in the Odesa bombardment, according to regional military administration head Oleh Kiper. The DTEK power provider said two of its energy facilities had significant damage. The company said 10 substations that distribute electricity in the region have been damaged in December.
Russia has escalated attacks on urban areas of Ukraine. As its invasion approaches a four-year milestone in February, it has also intensified targeting of energy infrastructure, seeking to deny Ukrainians heat and running water in the bitter winter months.
Between January and November, more than 2,300 Ukrainian civilians were killed and more than 11,000 were injured, the United Nations said earlier in December. That was 26% higher than in the same period in 2024 and 70% higher than in 2023, it said.
There are renewed diplomatic efforts to stop the fighting.
U.S. President Donald Trump hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday and announced that a settlement is “closer than ever before." The Ukrainian leader is due to hold talks next week with European leaders supporting his efforts to secure acceptable terms.
Despite progress in peace negotiations, which he didn't mention, Putin reaffirmed his belief in Russia’s eventual success in its invasion during his traditional New Year’s address.
He gave special praise to Russian troops deployed in Ukraine, describing them as heroes “fighting for your native land, truth and justice.”
“We believe in you and our victory,” Putin said, as cited by Russian state news agency Tass.
The Russian Defense Ministry said 86 Ukrainian drones were shot down overnight over Russian regions, the Black Sea and the illegally annexed Crimea peninsula.
Russia’s Defense Ministry released a video of a downed drone that it said was one of 91 Ukrainian drones involved in an alleged attack this week on a Putin residence in northwestern Russia, a claim Kyiv has denied as a “lie.”
The nighttime video showed a man in camouflage, a helmet and a Kevlar vest standing near a damaged drone lying in snow. The man, his face covered, talks about the drone. Neither the man nor the Defense Ministry provided any location or date.
The video and claims could not be independently verified.
Kyiv has denied the allegations of an attack on Putin’s lakeside country residence and called them a ruse to derail progress in peace negotiations.
Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation said Wednesday that the images could not be considered evidence of the attack as the origin of the damaged drone, as well as the time and location of the video itself, remained unknown.
“It took Russia more than two days to fabricate this ‘evidence’. The photographs of metal fragments laid out on the snow, published by the Russian Defense Ministry, do not prove anything in themselves,” the center said in a statement on its website.
“There is no video of air defense operations in the area of the residence, no recorded drone crashes in the claimed locations and no consistency even in its own figures, which have changed repeatedly.”
Maj. Gen. Alexander Romanenkov of the Russian air force claimed that the drones took off from Ukraine’s Sumy and Chernihiv regions. At a briefing where no questions were allowed, he presented a map showing the drone flight routes before they allegedly were downed by Russian air defenses over the Bryansk, Tver, Smolensk and Novgorod regions.
The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, called the Russian allegations “a deliberate distraction” from peace talks.
Zelenskyy said Romania and Croatia are the latest countries to join a fund that buys weapons for Ukraine from the United States.
The financial arrangement, known as the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List, or PURL, pools contributions from NATO members, except the United States, to purchase U.S. weapons, munitions and equipment.
Since it was established in August, 24 countries are now contributing to the fund, according to Zelenskyy. The fund has received $4.3 billion, with almost $1.5 billion coming in December, he said on social media.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Security Service carried out a drone strike on a major Russian fuel storage facility in the northwestern Yaroslavl region early Tuesday, according to a Ukrainian security official who was not authorized to speak publicly.
Long-range drones struck the Temp oil depot in the city of Rybinsk, part of Russia’s state fuel reserve system, the official told The Associated Press. Rybinsk is about 800 kilometers (500 miles) from the Ukrainian border.
A previous version of this story was corrected to give the timing of the alleged attack on Putin's residence as late Sunday and early Monday.
Katie Marie Davies in Leicester, England, contributed to this story.
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
This image made from undated video provided by the Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2025, shows a downed drone at an undisclosed location that it said was one of the Ukrainian drones involved in an alleged attack on a residence of President Vladimir Putin this week – a claim Kyiv has denied as a "lie". (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)
This image made from undated video provided by the Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2025, shows a downed drone at an undisclosed location that it said was one of the Ukrainian drones involved in an alleged attack on a residence of President Vladimir Putin this week – a claim Kyiv has denied as a "lie". (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)
This image made from undated video provided by the Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2025, shows a man in camouflage standing by a downed drone at an undisclosed location that it said was one of the Ukrainian drones involved in an alleged attack on a residence of President Vladimir Putin this week – a claim Kyiv has denied as a "lie". (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, emergency services personnel work to extinguish a fire following a Russian attack in Odesa, Ukraine, Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2025. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
In this image made from video provided by the Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on Tuesday, Dec. 30, 2025, a Russian Army soldier fires from D-30 howitzer towards Ukrainian positions in an undisclosed location in Ukraine. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)
