Colorado Rockies: 3 things we learned from the Giants series

The Colorado Rockies finished off their four-game series against the San Francisco Giants with a dramatic 6-4 comeback victory, to win the series 3-1, raising their record to 9-3.

The Colorado Rockies are surprisingly sitting at the top of the National League West standings through the first two weeks of the 2020 Major League Baseball season and with a shortened 60-game season, we’re watching every game more closely as they are even more important than they were in seasons’ past.

With that said, what have we learned from the Rockies after completing their latest series against the San Francisco Giants?

Making history

This is the Rockies’ fourth series they have played this season and so far they have won four.  This is the first time in franchise history they have accomplished this feat.

It may sound simple, but winning series is the easiest way to make the playoffs and the Rockies have done just that to begin the season. After all, if a team wins two of three or three of four in each series for a full 162-game season, it means that team would have a record between 108-54 and 122-40. Only one team in MLB history has won more than three-quarters of their games (the 1906 Cubs, who went 116-36, or a .763 winning percentage).

The Rockies, entering Friday, are at an even .750 winning percentage.

Nolan goes deep…and again and again

We all knew it wouldn’t last long but Nolan Arenado has finally ended his power outage.  In the first 8 games of the season, Nolan was an un-Nolan-like 7-for-31 (.226) with zero home runs and a lone RBI.

Those numbers drastically changed once the Giants came to 20th and Blake as Arenado hit a home run in each of the first three games of the series.

He was only 3-for-14 in the series but the fact that the Rockies’ record is 9-3 and he is showing signs of finding his stroke at the plate could spell trouble for the upcoming opponents.

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Pitching continues to be solid

It goes without saying but the Rockies wouldn’t be where they are at in the standings if it were not for the continued solid performance of the pitching staff.

The Rockies received some more good outings by starters Germán Márquez and Kyle Freeland.  Márquez went 7.1 innings allowing 2 earned runs with 9 strikeouts in Monday’s win and Freeland went 6.2 innings of scoreless ball Thursday before one bad pitch knocked him out of the game as he gave up a 3-run home run.

Even in Wednesday’s loss, Jon Gray only surrendered 4 runs in 6 innings of work and the bullpen held them scoreless the rest of the way.  The Rockies will not lose too many more games if they continue to hold opponents to 4 runs or less especially when they are at Coors Field.

So far the Rockies’ team ERA is a minuscule 3.08.  This will likely rise as the season goes along but it is definitely a sight for sore eyes considering last season it was an NL worst 5.56.

The Rockies head to Seattle to face the Mariners for a 3-game series starting Friday.  Starter Antonio Senzatela will oppose Yusei Kikuchi in game one with a start time of 7:40 MT.