They’ll be plenty of storylines when the Philadelphia Phillies and Colorado Rockies matchup on Thursday to kick off their four-game weekend series. The Rockies are dealing with injuries and offensive failings as their season appears on the brink of disaster already here in mid-April. Meanwhile, the Phillies, who remain one of the favorites in the NL are trying to get their starting pitching in order, a difficult task in the thin air of Denver.
The four-game weekend series between the Phillies and Rockies starts on Thursday, April18, 2019at the Coors Field, with first pitch slated for 8:40 p.m. ET.
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Odds Analysis
The Rockies took care of business in seven games against the Phillies last season, winning five of them and outscoring the Phillies by 30 runs in those seven games.
Of course, last year, the Rockies scored the second most runs in the National League and boasted a .757 team OPS while the Phillies ranked No.22 in all of baseball in runs scored with more than 100 fewer runs scored and an OPS 50 points lower than Colorado.
It’s still early in the 2019 season, but the tides have certainly changed. The Phillies are in the top third in runs scored this season with 79 and boast an impressive .793 team OPS. The Rockies, on the other hand, are tied for the second fewest runs scored in the sport and have a dismal .573 team OPS.
Nolan Arenado has just one home runs this season. Charlie Blackmon is getting on base at a .286 clip. Ian Desmond is batting .140 and is one of five active players with at least 30 plate appearances and an average south of .210.
Trevor Story has hit four home runs, but he’s got a .242/.309/.452 slash line, hardly anything to write home about when half your games are played at Coors.
David Dahl is the only Rockies’ hitter to have any kind of success this year and he’s been on the IL. He’s scheduled to come off it during this series, but we’ll see how the 10-days off impacts his bat. Dahl’s OPS is 1.013, the next highest is Story’s .760.
On the other side of this matchup, the Phillies have five starters with an OPS better than Story’s .760. In fact, those five have an OPS of at least .836.
J.T. Realmuto and Cesar Hernandez are the only two hitters struggling and Hernandez could start losing playing time to Scott Kingery who has looked good in very limited at bats.
Bryce Harper, Maikel Franco, and Rhys Hoskins all have at least four dingers, Hoskins leads the way with five. Those three all have an OBP of at least .400 as well and are joined by Andrew McCutchen in that category.
Probable Pitchers
There’s some concern on the mound for both teams as each haven’t gotten the production out of the starting pitchers as expected through the first couple weeks of the season.
This series will feature two of the top-four NL Cy Young Award finalists from last year with Kyle Freeland and Aaron Nola both scheduled to take the ball in this weekend series. Of course, Freeland is dealing with a blister issue which may prevent him from taking the ball. If he does go, he’ll try to overcome a 1-3 start to the year which has his ERA up to 5.40 in 21.2 innings. Nola’s been worse, allowing a dozen runs to score in just 15.1 innings of work.
Both Freeland and Nola have struggled to find their command here in the early going and the opposition has taken advantage.
Still, these are two proven pitchers. Freeland was 17-7 with a 2.85 ERA in 2018 and dominated in the NL Wild Card Game. Nola was 17-8 with a 2.37 ERA and sub-one WHIP while pitching a ton of innings.
In addition to Nola, the Phillies are likely to use Zach Eflin, Vince Velasquez and Nick Pivetta. Jake Arrieta is the one lucking out of pitching in Colorado this time around.
Starting pitching has been the biggest area of weakness for the Phillies on the young season, but Eflin and Vazquez have looked good. The former is 2-1 with a 3.94 ERA in his 16 innings while striking out 18 and walking just one. He has allowed four home runs, however. Vazquez has pitched just 12 innings, but as limited the opposition to six hits and three runs. He has walked three and his strikeouts are down, but the sample size is small.
Both Eflin and Vazquez peripherals were very strong in 2018, giving hope for a step forward in 2019. We’ll see if that pans out, but both are quality arms. Pivetta had similar numbers in 2018 and, perhaps, the best stuff of the bunch, but his 2019 hasn’t been good, he’s allowed 14 earned runs and a staggering 24 hits through only 13.1 innings.
The Rockies have similar uncertainty in their rotation save German Marquez who is coming off an impressive one-hit shutout against the Giants and has a 2-1 record with a 2.00 ERA and 0.704 WHIP in 27 innings.
The 24-year old right-hander was 14-11 last year with a 3.77, but down the stretch he took his game to another level, going 6-3 with a 2.61 ERA in his final 14 starts as his strikeout to walk rate more than doubled compared to the first half of 2018.
The other two likely starters in this series for the Rockies are Antonio Senzatela and Chad Bettis. Senzatela was a story for Colorado early in 2017, but the young right-hander struggled to adjust, but he’s still a 108 ERA+ pitcher though this would be just his second appearance of 2019. Bettis is a back-end starter who will need to the offense to help him out. He’s got a 5.10 career ERA and has allowed way too many base runners in his 13.1 innings pitched here in 2019 with 20 hits and eight walks, leading to his 14 total runs allowed.
Live Betting
The Phillies have the edge at the plate and with both rotations having issues that should be the difference in the game though the Rockies do have the better bullpen numbers to this point.
Colorado’s pen had an inflated ERA last year, but pitched better than the numbers down the stretch. In 2019, the pen has a 3.41 ERA to the Phillies’ 4.64 mark. Philadelphia also just lost David Robertson to the IL and while Robertson wasn’t off to a great start, he was a solid veteran option for Gabe Kapler.
The numbers here certainly point to the Rockies in a close, late-game situation, but there’s one problem. The Rockies’ pen hasn’t really pitched in that type of situation this year to know for sure. The Phillies’ have.
Colorado has won just four games and has no saves. The Rockies pen’s only real test game in an 11-inning 1-0 win over Tampa Bay. Otherwise, the first two wins were against Miami to start the year and never really in trouble. The last one came in a complete game by Marquez.
Bryan Shaw, Scott Oberg, Seunghwan Oh, and Wade Davis should be able to deliver a win if handed a lead late, but that’s been very hard to come by.
MLB Pick
The Rockies are at home, but it’s been a rough stretch for Colorado and the Phillies have played better baseball to this point.
This could be a series split, but with how badly the Rockies have looked offensively, take the Phillies to be able to nab an extra win and take the series.
Look for Harper, Hoskins and company to get some good pitches to hit and elevate a few balls out of the yard while also taking advantage of the spacious outfield with some key doubles and triples into the gaps. The hitters will have a blast.
Meanwhile, the Rockies’ offense cannot continue to be as bad as it has been. Colorado will put some runs on the board against the struggling Philadelphia starters, but don’t look for it to be enough as the Phillies walk away with a three to one series victory.
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