Colorado Rockies: lots of differences between ’17, ’18 home openers

Today, the Colorado Rockies will open their home slate of games against the Atlanta Braves. German Marquez will start it for the Rockies, which is one of the many things that will be different from 2017.

On April 7, 2017, the Rockies came home after opening the season in Milwaukee for four games. The Rockies did well as they won three of four against Milwaukee. Entering today, the Rockies are — and — so, obviously, they have played a lot more games then they did last season.

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However, those aren’t the only differences between the home openers. If you take a look at the bottom four in Bud Black’s starting lineup that day, there are a lot of differences.

1. Charlie Blackmon, CF
2. DJ LeMahieu, 2B
3. Carlos Gonzalez, RF
4. Nolan Arenado, 3B
5. Trevor Story, SS
6. Mark Reynolds, 1B
7. Stephen Cardullo, LF
8. Dustin Garneau, C
9. Kyle Freeland, SP

The top of the lineup will almost certainly be very similar but the Rockies are hoping for the same result: a win. They won in very un-Coors like action as they won by a score of 2-1 to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Kyle Freeland, in his first major league start, faced the Dodgers’ Hyun-jin Ryu.

For the Rockies, the scoring came early Nolan Arenado had an RBI double in the first inning to score DJ LeMahieu. In the fifth inning, Dustin Garneau hit a home run to make it 2-1 and that would be the game winner. Obviously, that won’t be happening this year as Garneau was not even on the Rockies at the end of last year, let alone now.

Also, if you check out the information about the game on Baseball Reference and check the weather, it was a warm 74 degrees. That will not be the case today as the high is supposed to be in the low 40s with a wintry mix turning to snow later on in the day.

Next: A bit more on what the weather could look like for the home opener

Even though the opening day’s will much different, the Rockies are hoping that they will get the same result and, perhaps, that will lead them to the same result they had by the end of the season.