Jake McCarthy’s grand slam lifts Rockies to win, but Coors Field attendance continues to struggle

Jake McCarthy walked halfway down the first base line, watching his moonshot as the ball flew.

McCarthy turned on Craig Kimbrel’s inside fastball in the eighth inning and pumped the pitch over the right field foul pole for a grand slam. It sailed 448 feet and was finally called fair by the first-base umpire — and upheld on review.

That swing propelled the Rockies to a 6-2 win over the Mets on Thursday at Coors Field, avoiding a sweep and snapping a six-game losing streak. McCarthy had two of the biggest swings of the game, as his RBI double in the sixth registered 19.9% Win Probability Added, then his granny in the eighth was 12.5% WPA. It was the Rockies’ first grand slam this season.

“It looked fair in the beginning, then it took a hard hook at the end, so I didn’t know,” McCarthy said of the grand slam. “I was thinking, ‘Just stay fair.’ … (Kimbrel) has a good fastball, and I figured in that situation he’s going to have to come over the heart of the plate with it. So I was hunting it, but I would’ve also taken a sac fly or a seeing-eye single.”

Colorado Rockies’ Jake McCarthy follows the flight of his grand slam off New York Mets relief pitcher Craig Kimbrel in the eighth inning of a baseball game, Thursday, May 7, 2026, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

But even with McCarthy’s offensive fireworks plus a strong pitching performance by Colorado, Coors Field attendance continues to lag through the Rockies’ first 19 home games of 2026. Of those 19 games, eight of them have been the lowest home attendance marks in club history for a franchise coming off three consecutive 100-loss seasons, including a historic 119-defeat embarrassment in 2025.

Weather played a factor in some of those figures, including this week. In Wednesday’s 10-5 defeat to New York, the Rockies set a new low with 11,155 fans in a game whose start time was pushed back and that followed a snowstorm earlier in the day. Thursday’s matinee, which was postponed from Tuesday, didn’t draw much better with 13,378 fans.

But it’s clear the fan apathy generated by the past three forgettable seasons is also playing a role in the low turnouts.

“We want to give fans something to root for, and I think we have to sort of earn their interest (back),” McCarthy said. “That’s something we do by winning and playing a good brand of baseball.”

Here’s a look at the Rockies’ struggling attendance in LoDo this season. Prior to 2026, the lowest home attendance in Colorado history was 18,119 on Sept. 22, 2005, against the Padres.

• April 22, 8-3 win vs Padres: 18,114
• April 7, 5-1 win vs Astros: 17,328
• April 6, 9-7 win vs Astros: 16,301
• April 21, 1-0 loss vs Padres: 15,672
• May 4, 4-2 loss vs Mets: 15,564
• April 8, 9-1 win vs Astros: 15,189
• May 7, 6-2 win vs Mets: 13,378
• May 6, 10-5 loss to Mets: 11,155

Those who were in attendance on Thursday saw a strong performance by Jose Quintana, 14 years to the day of his MLB debut with the White Sox. Quintana threw 5 2/3 innings of two-run ball. The damage came in the second inning, when New York scored via a sacrifice fly and RBI single.

The Rockies’ offense struggled to get in gear all afternoon until McCarthy’s decisive swing. Colorado got a run from Willi Castro’s RBI single in the fourth, then tied the game on McCarthy’s RBI double in the sixth. But Colorado left runners on the corners in the fourth and stranded the bases loaded in the sixth after McCarthy’s blooped double to center tied the game.

McCarthy has been on a heater lately, hitting .409 over his last nine games, including his first homer of the year in Wednesday’s defeat that preceded his grand slam on Thursday. Rockies manager Warren Schaeffer lauded McCarthy’s ability to put the ball in play in a two-strike count in the sixth.

“That’s a huge point in the game,” Schaeffer said. “It changes now you approach everything (from there on), and it changes how you use your bullpen.”

Juan Mejia, Brennan Bernardino and Antonio Senzatela combined for a scoreless relief performance by the Rockies. Colorado now heads on a six-game road trip to Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

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