Colorado Rockies: This series will be one of the deciders of this season

The Summer Classic of baseball has come and passed. The Colorado Rockies sent three players along with the Rockies manager, Bud Black, to the All Star game this past week, and now it’s time to get back into the swing of things. With their first game in the second half being tonight, it’s already an important series.

The Colorado Rockies are only two games behind the first place Los Angeles Dodgers. This most likely wouldn’t have happened if the Rockies didn’t have a stellar and surprising July. Now that the first half of the season is over, it’s getting down to crunch time however it helps that they’re playing above .500 baseball and are in 3rd place. Be that as it may, the Rockies have some serious contenders that they’ll be playing later in the week.

The Arizona Diamondbacks are ahead of the Colorado Rockies in 2nd place and only a half a game back. The Rockies, of course, will be looking for a sweep as they ride off the sweeping of the Seattle Mariners. However, getting one over on the D’backs may prove to be a hard task. The Rockies currently have a 3-6 record against them during the first half of the season. However, this would be the series that they have to win a majority of in order to push past them in the standings.

It will be hard but the Colorado Rockies will have some solid starts from the guys that’ll be on the mound in the series. German Marquez will start them off. His last outing, which was against Arizona, he went 6 innings while only giving up 2 runs and striking out 8, picking up the win.

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The next night everyone’s favorite guy, Kyle Freeland will take the mound. He went 5.1 innings against the Dbacks giving up 1 run and striking out 4. Although that was the Rockies did come away with the win. In the series finale, the Rockies have not officially named a starter but it could be either Antonio Senzatela (who would have to be activated from the DL) or Jon Gray. Gray truly did prove himself after coming back from being sent down to Triple A for a stint. He went 7.1 innings against the Mariners striking out 6 and giving up a single run while getting the win.

The Colorado Rockies pitching staff will really be depended upon in the series to hold off the offensive of the Arizona Diamondbacks. That proved to be true at the game German Marquez pitched in when they won 19-2. However, pitching is not the only thing that makes up a team. The offense will need to be on their A-game as they play another team in the NL West in contention.

We saw incredible at-bats from the Trevor Story, Charlie Blackmon, and Ian Desmond towards the end of the first half. Nolan Arenado seemed to struggle despite the winning record of the last few games. Due to Trevor Story’s solid outings, he’s now in MVP talks amongst folks. Carlos Gonzalez had some nice highlights as well to boost up the team. Even the bench players are starting to show up and show out.

Next: Rockies Closer to First at Break Than 2017

The key to victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks starts with the Colorado Rockies’ pitching. They have to hold down the fort long enough for the offense to get some momentum going. If the Rockies are anything like they were in the last month of the first half, it won’t be that hard of a task. We also need to watch what happens when the Los Angeles Dodgers take on the Milwaukee Brewers this weekend. This could tell how many games back the Colorado Rockies will be. However, in order to even get close to the Dodgers, the Rockies must overtake the Diamondbacks.

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