Colorado Rockies series preview: Coming home to face Atlanta

Tuesday’s starting pitching match up

For the Rockies on Tuesday, Kyle Freeland will be coming off the 10-day disabled list to make the start. It will be his first start since he left in the first inning of his start on August 4 against the Philadelphia Phillies.

This season, he is 11-7 with a 3.70 ERA in 22 appearances (21 have been starts). Excluding that start in which he only had nine pitches, in his previous four appearances (three of which have been starts), he has an ERA of 2.01 and an opponent batting average of .198.

Freeland will be facing fellow rookie left-hander Sean Newcomb. He is 1-7 with a 4.45 ERA. Even though his ERA isn’t sparkling, you can see that the lefty hasn’t gotten much run support by his win-loss record. In his past four starts, he has a 3.74 ERA. In that span of 21 2/3 innings, he has walked 16, though, so that will be something the Rockies will have to keep their eye on.

In Triple-A Gwinnett, Newcomb was 3-3 with a 2.97 ERA in 11 starts so he didn’t particularly get much run support there either. He also averaged more than five walks per nine innings in Triple-A, like he has at the major league level.

Neither Newcomb or Freeland have ever faced their opposing team nor any player on the opposing team since both of them are rookies.

For the Rockies, Jon Gray will be on the mound for them. He is 4-2 with a 4.92 ERA in 11 starts. In his past three starts, he is 1-1 with a 3.20 ERA and a .250 opponent batting average. Rockies manager Bud Black said, before Gray’s start on Friday against Miami that “[the past] two outings were his best, for me” (as we talked about in this article from Friday before the series started.)

The Braves have seen Gray before but only in limited action. Only five position players currently on the Braves roster have seen him before and none of them have more than seven at-bats against him. However, combined, they haven’t had much success as they are hitting .207.

Gray will be facing fellow right-handed pitcher Mike Foltynewicz (pronounced Fol-ten-eh-vich). He is 10-7 with a 4.29 ERA in 23 games (22 have been starts). He has struggled in his past three starts, though, as his ERA in that span is 8.31. As a result, his ERA is up from 3.82 in that time. He’s only gone 13 innings in the past three starts an he has walked seven in that span and has an opponent batting average of .321.

In three career games at Coors Field (with only one start), he is 0-1 with a 4.70 ERA with a .267 opponent average.

Against current Rockies in general, there have been mixed results. DJ LeMahieu is 7-for-9 (.778 average) with two RBI and a walk against him and Carlos Gonzalez is 3-for-7 (a .429 average) with a double, a home run, four RBI. However, seven other Rockies have faced him before (Nolan Arenado, Charlie Blackmon, Trevor Story, Jonathan Lucroy, Gerardo Parra, and Mark Reynolds) and combined, they are 1-for-29 (a .034 average) against him with four walks.

In the series finale, Jeff Hoffman will be starting for the Rockies. This season, he is 6-4 with a 5.15 ERA in 16 appearances (15 of which have been starts). Even after a less-than stellar performance on Saturday against the Marlins in which he went five innings, gave up seven hits, four runs, and walked three, in his past three starts, Hoffman’s ERA is 3.50 and his opponent’s batting average is .239.

He will be opposing another right-handed rookie in Lucas Sims. He was just called up at the beginning of this month so he has limited experience. In three starts at the major league level, he has struggled as he is 0-3 with a 5.71 ERA. His opponents (which have been the Dodgers, Marlins, and Cardinals) have had a .324 batting average against him.

In Triple-A Gwinnett, he was 7-4 with a 3.75 ERA in 20 games (19 of which were starts).

Thursday’s game has a scheduled start time of 1:10 PM Mountain time so, as with most weekday day games, AT&T Rocky Mountain will not be televising the game. The rest of the games have a scheduled start time of 6:40 Mountain time and they will be televised. Of course, all games will be broadcast on KOA 850 and the Rockies Radio Network. If you don’t live in Colorado or in Wyoming and you are a subscriber to MLB.TV, you can watch the Braves telecast of the game on Thursday.

The Braves offense

The Braves offense is an offense that has struggled all season. They do have a good team batting average of .259 (which is 4th in the National League and 8th overall in baseball) and 208 doubles (6th in the NL and 11th in baseball) but that is where the good numbers end.

In nearly every other offensive stat, they are in the bottom half of baseball and/or the National League. They include in on-base percentage, slugging percentage, OPS+, runs, and triples.

As a result of seeing these numbers, you can see that the Braves hit a lot of singles and doubles but fail to drive runners in. After all, they are 20th in baseball in runs for a reason. They are very impatient at the plate as they are dead last in the National League in walks and they don’t hit for much power in ways of triples and home runs as they are in the bottom five in baseball in each category.

Freddie Freeman is their best offense player. He was injured for part of the season but in 71 games in 2017, he has 85 hits, 57 runs, 18 doubles, 21 home runs, 48 RBI, seven stolen bases, a .322 batting average, a .424 on-base percentage, a .636 slugging percentage, and OPS+ of 170 (100 is league average). He, essentially, is the Braves version of Nolan Arenado (but he’s not as good defensively. Good, but not Arenado good.)

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The Braves bullpen

For a team that is 12 games under .500, 12 games back of the second wildcard, and 17 1/2 back in the National League East, the Braves have actually had a decent bullpen. Their 4.34 is only 20th in baseball but it is better than the Rockies. They had an atrocious month of July as they had a 6.34 bullpen ERA in July and a 4.66 ERA in April but in May, June, and August, they have done very well. In May and June, their bullpen ERA was 3.86 and 3.69, respectively, and in August, their ERA has been even better as it is 2.06 for the month and batters are only hitting .183 against them.

They currently have six relievers with at least 29 1/3 innings pitched and an ERA of 3.86 or below so they have been pretty effective. Their closer, Jim Johnson, has an ERA of 3.86 but he has blown eight saves this season so that is something that the Rockies could take advantage of in a close game late.

Also, of note, two former Rockies now call the Atlanta bullpen home: Jason Motte and Rex Brothers (you probably were hoping to not hear his name for a while). Motte has done well as he has an ERA of 3.68 in 29 1/3 innings but Brothers has not. He has pitched in 13 1/3 innings and he has an ERA of 6.08.

Arenado’s injury

It will also be interesting to see how long Rockies third baseman Nolan Arenado will be out of commission due to his hand injury. At least for Monday’s game, I would suspect that either Pat Valaika or Ryan McMahon will get the start at third base.

Next: Arenado spoke to the media after Sunday's game about his injury

The Rockies did avoid a catastrophe, though, as Arenado does not have any broken bones (you can see the video in this article that our own Kevin Henry published yesterday). We will have to see, though, if the injury causes Arenado any production issues or lingering problems.