The Seattle Mariners and Colorado Rockies will meet up in the four games home-and-home series. The Rockies remain the hottest team in the National League heading into this series while the Mariners are still trying to catch up after their slow start to the season. A big series against the NL’s best team to date would go a long way.
This series will be contested from Monday, May 29, 2017 through Thursday, June 1, 2017 with the first two games at Coors Field in Denver and the last two at Safeco Field in Seattle. For those outside the local market, Thursday’s game will be broadcast live on MLB Network.
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Pitching Matchups
The Mariners have been riddled with injuries in their starting rotation and continue to run out a rotation that looks more like it belongs at Triple-A Tacoma than at the Big-League Level. The good news for Seattle, however, is they will start to get pieces back this week, starting with southpaw James Paxton.
Paxton will get the ball on Wednesday and pitch opposite of the Rockies’ rookie sensation, Antonio Senzatela. Fellow rookie standout, Kyle Freeland, is projected to get the start in Thursday’s series finale. He’ll pitch opposite the only other healthy Mariner starter from the team’s opening day roster: Yovani Gallardo.
Prior to the two games in Seattle, these two teams will meet on Monday and Tuesday in Colorado with the Mariners’ Sam Gaviglio and Ariel Miranda drawing the short straws and toeing the rubber in the games at Coors Field. The Rockies’ tandem of Tylers will start the games for the Rockies with Tyler Chatwood opposite of Gaviglio on Monday and Tyler Anderson starting against Miranda on Tuesday.
For the series opener, Gaviglio will be making his third big league start. The 27-year old rookie has done well in his first two. He’s not a big-time prospect and is, at this point, more of a minor-league journeyman, but he’s making the most of his chances so far. The same can be said for the Cuban lefty Ariel Miranda. He starts the second game and is 9-4 for Seattle since joining the team last year in a deal that sent Wade Miley to Baltimore.
Miranda is 4-2 with a 4.22 ERA this year and was 5-2 with a 3.54-mark last year. He’s walked a few more and allowed a few more hits than last year, but his FIP this season is very much in line with his ERA. He’s not an ace by any means, but he’s a solid back-end starter who will give you a chance to win. Now, how he’ll do in Coors Field could be another story.
Chatwood and Anderson have the experience pitching in Coors to draw from, even if the results have been spotty. The two have the highest ERAs of all the Rockies pitchers to get a start this year, but they’re also the most veteran. The pair of 27-year old’s are a combined 7-10, but they’re both coming off strong seven-inning outings.
For Anderson, he’s allowed three combined runs in 13 innings over his last two starts. Chatwood, meanwhile, is coming off a seven-inning, one-hit performance, strikingout eight.
As the series shifts to Seattle, the pitching gets better, too. The Rockies’ Senzatela and Freeland are 7-1 and 5-3 respectively, both with ERAs south of 3.5 while Senzatela has been very good at keeping batters off base with a 1.145 WHIP while Freeland has avaoided the home run, allowing just five despite pitching half his games at Coors.
Meanwhile, the Mariners have Paxton coming back from injury for Wednesday’s game.
Paxton seemed to have turned a corner before his injury. He always had great stuff, but he was 3-0 with a 1.43 ERA and 0.982 WHIP over six starts before sitting out a few weeks. In those six starts, he had allowed just 26 hits and 11 walks while striking out 45 and keeping the ball in the yard in 37.2 innings.
Seattle will hope he can return to that form right away without any rust.
As for Gallardo, he’s pitching to a 5.76 ERA and is 2-5 with a 1.591 WHIP and 69 ERA+. His FIP is lower so he’s been a bit unlucky, but he’s not a strikeout pitcher anymore and is essentially a five and dive hurler that you hope to give five or six serviceable innings from.
Offensive Comparison
The Rockies found much of their success in the first month due to strong relief work, good enough starting pitching and just enough offense.
For Colorado, the offense has always been there, but in April, the Rockies weren’t much better than an average offense team, even with Mark Reynolds slugging and the Coors Field effect working to their advantage.
Well, with month two now mostly in the rearview window, we can saw confidently: the Rockies offense is back on top.
Their first in baseball in runs scored in Mary and have a .789 OPS for the month, that’s not quite the top of the heap, but it’s close.
The scariest part of this is there is still plenty of room for growth for the Rockies’ offense. Reynolds is still slugging. He, Nolan Arenado and Charlie Blackmon each hit five bombs in the month, but D.J. LeMahieu is starting to hit like the league leading batter he was last year. His OBP for the month is over 34-percent. After scuffling and getting injured, Trevor Story is batting .243 with a .364 OBP in May. His power is down, but he’s making better contact and having better at bats.
For Seattle, Nelson Cruz’s bat is still hot, though it’s cooled from the run he went on a couple weeks ago.
Robinson Cano is back after missing a chunk of time and swinging well, but the team still have a few holes in the lineup. Ben Gamel is filling in admirably for Mitch Haniger in right, but center field and catcher are offensive waste lands.
Bullpen Breakdown
Greg Holland is human, but just barely.
The Rockies’ closer has allowed two runs in 18.2 innings of work and has 19 saves in 20 games pitched. He’s posting an ERA+ of 521 which is just ridiculous. Almost as much so as his 0.804 WHIP and 1.19 FIP. He’s allow just nine hits all year and none have left the park.
Holland is a beast in the ninth and he’s not alone. The Rockies’ bullpen is strong and they’ve got the man power to narrow the game to six or seven innings, leaving a lot less pressure on the young Rockies’ starters.
The opposite is true in Seattle. Edwin Diaz came in as an assumed lock-down closer after his debut last year. He’s still striking out a ton of batters—but he’s nowhere near as dominant as he was in his small sample last year. With him average, it takes away an assumed strength for this club. There are still some serviceable arms in this pen and Steve Cishek’s return could be a boost, though the early results through four games could use some help.
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