MLB Betting Preview: San Francisco Giants at Colorado Rockies

Added on Apr 18, 2011 by Jack Thurman in

MLB

The marquee matchup of Monday’s baseball card is a National League West battle between the San Francisco Giants and Colorado Rockies. The Rockies currently lead the division with a 12-3 record and the Giants are in second place at 8-7. This is the first of a three game set at Coors Field.

San Francisco Giants (Lincecum) at Colorado Rockies (Rogers)
April 18, 2011 5:40 PM Pacific

Colorado has been the dominant team in the West so far though they’ve gone about it in an uncharacteristic fashion. Instead of dominating at home and struggling on the road they’ve actually got a better record away from Coors Field at this point. Colorado is 7-1 on the road so far this season with a 5-2 record at Coors Field. For years, the Rockies have been a very good home team but have struggled on the road. If they can’t improve their play away from Coors Field they could be in a position to contend for the NL crown. Pitching has historically been a concern for Colorado but they’ve got a solid rotation to work with now and check in at #10 in team ERA despite a slow start by staff ace Ubaldo Jimenez.

The Giants will start Tim Lincecum who has been in excellent form thus far with a 1.86 ERA into this contest. Colorado’s Esmil Rogers has also turned in very solid work to date with a 2.77 ERA and a 2-0 record. Colorado was very competitive in head to head play with the Giants in 2010—the teams split 18 games and in our view Sanchez is one of the better matchups for the Rockies in the San Francisco rotation.

Colorado has won 10 of the last 17 head to head at Coors Field and at this stage of the season are just on a different level from the rest of the NL West–San Francisco included. We expect the Giants to be in the mix at the end of the season but until the Rockies ‘cool off’ we can’t pass up an opportunity to take them as a home underdog at Coors Field where they’ve been flat out dominant in recent years. In fact, we’ll likely use Colorado in every game of this series.

Bet Colorado Rockies (Rogers) +115 over San Francisco Giants (Lincecum)