Denver ? A Rockies game in Denver used to be a big event, both inside and outside the ballpark.

Beer flowed. Baseballs flew. An entire section of downtown known as LoDo was transformed from a run-down row of empty warehouses to a hopping center of Denver nightlife, all centered on gleaming new Coors Field on Blake Street.

These days, the Rockies are terrible, and the fans barely care.

“The Rockies are killing us,” said Jason Quinn, a bartender for the last eight years at the Falling Rock Tap House. “We were busy for the home opener. That was Monday. By Wednesday, the next game, it was a ghost town down here.”

As dispiriting as Colorado’s 23 losses in its first 32 games have been, the attendance numbers at home have been staggering. Thursday night, in a loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Rockies drew an announced crowd of 18,184 — the smallest in Coors Field history.

Counting their opening-day crowd of 47,661, the Rockies averaged 23,625 fans in their first 15 home games. That’s nearly 6,000 fewer than last year and 24,000 fewer than the peak in 1996-97 when the team led the majors in attendance and the city’s love affair with baseball was in full bloom.

But now, the Rockies have the worst record in the National League.

“The honeymoon is over,” said Kyle Hesseltine, manager of the Sports Column, as he looked at his mostly empty bar that also suffered this winter because the NHL’s Avalanche were on ice. “The difference is, 50,000 people went by our front door back then, compared to maybe 15,000 now.”

The Rockies’ marketing department decided to promote the 2005 team as “Generation R,” a not-so-subtle attempt to advise fans that this year’s Rockies would be young, spunky and, almost certainly, not very good.

They were right on many levels. But, with only a few exceptions — a pair of recent one-run victories over the Braves included — they have been largely devoid of excitement and pretty painful to watch.

“You can blame this, blame that,” said Todd Helton, the team’s only truly recognizable star. “The thing about it is, it’s still early in the year, and instead of looking at everyone else, I’ve got to look at myself in the mirror and see what I can do better to help this team win.”

While Helton took the blame for his own early season slump — just nine RBIs during April — there are some things he can’t control.

The pitching staff entered the series with Arizona with a 6.05 earned-run average, worst in the major leagues.