Colorado Rockies: Series preview with the Milwaukee Brewers

The Colorado Rockies came home to face the Los Angeles Angels and Milwaukee Brewers. The Rockies split their series with the Angels and today, they start a four game series with the Milwaukee Brewers before heading back on the road.

To wrap up their six-game homestand, the Colorado Rockies will host the Milwaukee Brewers for the next four games. Here are a few things to keep an eye out for in the series.

Many similarities between the teams

The Milwaukee Brewers come to Denver after wrapping up their own two game, interleague series at home with the Cleveland Indians. They also split their series by winning the first game and losing the second, just like the Rockies. They also both enter the series with a 21-16 record and both are in second place in their division.

However, the similarities do not stop there.

Milwaukee’s offense has struggled

The Colorado Rockies offense has been, quite frankly, awful in the first month plus of the season. They are tied for last in baseball in OPS+ at 80 (97 is league average thus far in the season). The Miami Marlins are the team tied with them at 80. The team who is 25th in baseball is the Milwaukee Brewers, at 86.

The Brewers only have four players above league average in OPS+ with first baseman Jesus Aguilar at 146 (who platoons with Ryan Braun there), left fielder Christian Yelich at 123, center fielder Lorenzo Cain at 123, and third baseman Travis Shaw at 105.

The similarities still don’t stop, though.

Their pitching has been what’s helped them win games

The Milwaukee Brewers enter the series with an ERA+ of 121, which is sixth best in the major leagues. The Rockies have an ERA+ of 109, which is 12th best in the National League.

However, one difference is that the Brewers have got it by their bullpen, while the Rockies have got it by their starting pitching.

For the Brewers, they have six relievers that enter the series with an ERA of 2.38 or lower and each of them have worked at least 11 innings in the majors this season. Combined, their bullpen has an ERA of 2.74 compared to their starter’s ERA of 4.05.

The Rockies starters ERA entering the series is 3.81 compared to the Rockies bullpen ERA which is 5.02 (obviously, the raw ERA will be a little bit higher than most teams considering they play home games at Coors).

The starters in the series

For the Rockies, they will be sending out German Marquez, Chad Bettis, Kyle Freeland, and Jon Gray in that order.

For the Brewers, they have a few more questions as they will send out old friend Jhoulys Chacin on Thursday and Chase Anderson on Friday. However, Saturday and Sunday are still up in the air. Their ace Zach Davies is looking to return from the 10-day disabled list from right rotator cuff inflammation. He was placed on the DL last Thursday but the move was retroactive to last Monday.

Even if he does return on Saturday, the Brewers still have not determined who will start on Sunday.

Next: Colorado Rockies working DJ LeMahieu back into lineup slowly

Stay tuned for updates throughout the series both here and on our Twitter page, @RoxPileFS.

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