Despite the uphill battle the Colorado Rockies have faced in the 2026 Major League Baseball season, they still have plenty to be optimistic about.

The Rockies’ 13-7 win against the San Francisco Giants on Sunday at Oracle Park was not a meaningless August victory for a team that will miss the playoffs. It held weight, it held significance, and here is why:

By beating the Giants on Sunday, Colorado secured its 50th win of the season.

This is a big deal because the Rockies only mustered up 43 wins in a disastrous 2025 campaign that was the worst in franchise history. After hitting rock bottom, Colorado is incrementally working upward under first-year President of Baseball Operations Paul DePodesta and manager Warren Schaeffer, who is in his first full season at the helm after serving as interim manager last season.

The Rockies also reached their 50th win by going 5-4 on a nine-game road trip, which was impressive in itself given the club’s struggles on the road this season.

With 38 games remaining in the season, Colorado has a chance to accomplish more than it did by overcoming its low win total in 2025. The Rockies have a chance to post more wins than they did in 2023, when they went 59-103, as well as 2024, when they went 61-101.

Perhaps more optimistic but not impossible is Colorado’s chance to avoid 100 losses for the first time since 2022. If it can secure 63 wins, then that is another milestone to take pride in.

The Rockies’ win over San Francisco on Sunday not only gave them the three-game set, but the season series overall.

Colorado narrowly beat out the Giants, going 7-6 through 13 games this year. Both clubs are having a bad year, but the expectation was for San Francisco to contend; the same cannot be said about the Rockies.

The Rockies see their division rivals more than any other team throughout the year, and even though the Giants are also struggling, Colorado has to feel good about coming out on top against them.

The rest of August is certainly going to have its challenges for the Rockies, and one of the biggest ones is visiting Coors Field on Monday in the form of the Los Angeles Dodgers for a three-game series.

The Dodgers just allowed the Milwaukee Brewers to take three out of four games from them at home in a high-leverage series, so it is hard to imagine them as anything but frustrated, and their desire to get back into the win column will be strong.

Through 10 games against Los Angeles this season, the Rockies have won three, indicating that it is not impossible to beat the back-to-back World Series champions, but it will be a task. After hosting the Dodgers, the Cleveland Guardians come to town.

Currently, the Guardians are just trying to find a way back to playing winning baseball, and they will see their series against the Rockies as a chance to string together some wins. While a team like the Dodgers is essentially a playoff lock, Cleveland is fighting for its life just to get back in the American League Wild Card picture, so Colorado must be ready.

Then the Rockies will travel to play the Washington Nationals, another team that, at 60-66 going into Monday’s slate of games, is also trying to find a way to win. After Washington, a road series against the Atlanta Braves is up next for Colorado.

The series against the Braves will just about conclude the month, and it will arguably be the most difficult one the Rockies have to play. After Atlanta, they will return home to kick off a series against the Baltimore Orioles that begins on Aug. 31.