DENVER (AP) — During a mound visit in the top of the first inning with the Colorado Rockies already trailing the Arizona Diamondbacks by two runs, a lone voice of encouragement emerged from an otherwise restless and murmuring crowd at Coors Field.
“Let’s go, Rockies!” a fan shouted Tuesday from section 130, just behind home plate in the lower bowl.
It was one of the few cheers the Rockies would receive on a night they reached an ignominious historical mark.
Behind three hits from former Rockies All-Star Nolan Arenado and seven innings of two-hit ball from Michael Soroka, the Diamondbacks beat the Rockies 7-2 to guarantee Colorado its fourth straight season with at least 100 losses in front of an announced crowd of 19,324 (along with an estimated 800 dogs on one of Rockies’ Bark at the Park nights).
The Rockies became just the fifth club in major league history to lose at least 100 games in four consecutive seasons and the first to do so since the New York Mets in their expansion season of 1962 through 1965.
“You learn your hardest lessons in difficulty in life,” said Warren Schaeffer, in his first season as Colorado’s full-time manager. “This is not easy. Last year, we talked about it at the end of the year, how we want to feel this and never feel it again and remember it and hold on to it. The guys have done that. We’ve just lost 100 again. There are a ton of lessons to learn from it. If we don’t learn these lessons from these games this year, we won’t get better.”
It’s the latest low for a franchise that has made the playoffs just twice since 2010 and hasn’t won a playoff series since a memorable run to the World Series in 2007. Since the start of the 2023 season, the Rockies are a major league-worst 220-423, 23 games worse than the next-closest team (the Chicago White Sox).
“I’ve been a part of those here when I was here,” Arenado said. “With the young group that they have, sometimes, this is just a part of it. You’re going to go through some tough times. But I think from their offense and some of their bullpen guys, they’ve got some real arms and they’ve got some really good hitters. As they continue to grow, I think that’s going to change.”
For much of the season, it looked as if Colorado would avoid 100 losses. On Aug. 16, the Rockies beat the San Francisco Giants 13-7 for their fourth win in five games, improving to 50-74. Since then, however, Colorado has gone 7-26, including 2-13 in its past 15 games.
Some of their struggles remain familiar.
As it has for much of its history, an organization tasked with playing baseball a mile above sea level has struggled keeping opponents off the board. Entering Tuesday, the Rockies had a team ERA of 5.57, the highest mark in the majors. Colorado has finished with the highest team ERA every season since 2022 and if it does so again this year, it will become only the third club since 1913 to have the worst ERA in the majors in five consecutive seasons.
The Rockies also compete in the same division as the Los Angeles Dodgers, the two-time reigning World Series champions, and the San Diego Padres, who are on the verge of their fifth postseason appearance in the past seven seasons. This season, Colorado went a combined 5-21 against the Dodgers and Padres.
The Rockies did improve this year after losing a franchise-record 119 games last season. Rookie first baseman TJ Rumfield entered Tuesday fifth in the National League with a .300 batting average and led all qualified rookies in batting average and on-base percentage. Hunter Goodman, Colorado’s 26-year-old catcher, was an All-Star for a second consecutive season and is one home run shy of becoming the first Rockies player with 40 homers in a season since 2019.
"I think everything we’re doing inside this clubhouse — coaches, players, front office, all staff — has been doing an incredible job to make sure that this team and this org is heading in the direction that is winning,” said Rockies starter Kyle Freeland, a Denver native who is in his 10th season with the club. “You see it.”
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Colorado Rockies starting pitcher Kyle Freeland is hugged as he returns to the dugout after being pulled from the mound in the fourth inning of a baseball game againstt he Arizona Diamondbacks Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2026, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
Colorado Rockies starting pitcher Kyle Freeland, center, hands the ball as he is pulled from the mound to manager Warren Schaeffer, front left, as catcher Hunter Goodman, back left, and first baseman TJ Rumfield look on in the fourth inning of a baseball game against the Arizona Diamondbacks Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2026, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
NEW YORK (AP) — On a day of high-stakes diplomacy on the global stage, President Donald Trump began his United Nations visit by telling a prominent U.S. journalist, “You should not be here.”
“It’s an honor to be here,” Trump said as he entered U.N. doors Tuesday ahead of his speech to the General Assembly and faced Kaitlan Collins of CNN, a frequent target of his ire. “I’m surprised that CNN is here covering me. You should not be here covering me. You said you weren’t going to cover me.”
As Collins noted later on air, CNN said nothing of the kind. The administration had banned CNN from White House grounds days earlier — along with MS NOW and Politico — and removed the network from pool duty. But CNN had been admitted into the U.N. as regularly credentialed media.
In any case, the tense moment was a stark reminder of how dramatically the bitter conflict between Trump and news outlets whose coverage he objects to as “fake news" has escalated in just a few days.
The current ban was the subject of a joint lawsuit filed Monday by the three outlets, calling the decision selective — based on the content of their coverage — and asking a judge to find Trump's move unconstitutional.
Late Tuesday, the administration filed a response urging the court to reject the news outlets' request, saying “access to the White House is a privilege — not a right.” The government argued that White House officials can control journalists’ access to “restricted presidential areas,” such as the Oval Office.
“Significantly, Presidents have long decided which journalists should receive privileged access, which has varied substantially by administration,” they wrote.
A hearing is scheduled for Wednesday afternoon.
On Tuesday, Trump doubled down on his remarks and said negative coverage was dangerous for the country.
Asked whether he would allow the outlets back in if the court rules against the White House, he said, “Well, it probably will, because this is a judge who’s not a particularly fair judge.” He was referring to U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, whom he appointed in 2017 and who ordered a CNN journalist’s access restored in a similar case in 2018.
“So you never know,” Trump added. "I think we have a right to clean out fake news."
Trump’s comments echoed others he's made since announcing the ban Friday. He has referred to “purposely negative stories” as justification for the ban.
The ban and lawsuit are part of a long-running conflict between the president — especially in his second term — and media outlets he finds unfavorable. Trump has responded in the courtroom, or with regulatory action. He's also lashed out at individual reporters in person or over social media, sometimes in strikingly personal terms — as he has with CNN's Collins, most recently in a speech at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.
On air, after her exchange with Trump on Tuesday, Collins said: “We never said we were not going to cover the president. We will do our best to cover him each and every day.”
Tuesday began with an item missing from the daily press schedule issued by the White House: It did not list the U.S. network pool, a departure from the norm.
CNN had been the designated pool network for the president’s trip to New York, according to a schedule that divides coverage of certain events between the five major networks. But Trump's ban removed it from pool duties.
The other pool members agreed, in solidarity, not to replace CNN with another network on the coverage, and further to suspend all pool coverage until further notice. Other news outlets also took steps in solidarity. The Associated Press joined a number of news organizations, including The Washington Post and The New York Times, in a decision not to publish photographs of presidential events Monday.
It remains to be seen how long both the ban and the collective media action will continue.
In speeches and meetings Tuesday, Trump was seen plenty by global audiences, thanks to UNTV — the official United Nations broadcast arm — and pool journalists covering other international leaders.
Meanwhile, a sign was spotted in the White House workspace: “I stand with AP, CNN, MS NOW, Politico.”
One longtime TV analyst says the lack of constant coverage will prove damaging to a spotlight-loving president — which may be one reason the standoff ultimately ends.
“This ban is not going to go on forever because he doesn’t want that to happen, any more than anybody else,” said Robert Thompson, director of Syracuse University’s Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture.
In the short term, Thompson said, audiences won't feel the impact in a lasting way — after all, he noted, there are many ways people get news outside of network coverage.
“We are not going to be deprived of important civic information,” Thompson said, as might have happened years ago when outlets and options were fewer.
On the other hand, if viewers were interested in what Trump said as he inaugurated a helipad at the White House on Monday, they were out of luck: The sound of Trump’s whirring, waiting helicopter drowned out his remarks. TV network crews usually work to capture clearer audio.
On a deeper level, Thompson said, news consumers will be impacted in a more serious way. He called out Trump's remarks labeling negative media coverage "dangerous" as troubling.
“These casual remarks, not even disguised, about what we always considered basic freedoms of the press ... that, I think, is a lot more serious,” he said.
AP reporter Michael Kunzelman contributed.
President Donald Trump attends a multilateral meeting with the Gulf Cooperation Council during the United Nations General Assembly, Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2026, at the UN headquarters. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
A sign in support of news outlets is seen at the White House press room, Sept. 19, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
