Colorado at San Francisco
Friday, May 6th, 10:15 PM
(matchup)
An important early season series in the NL West gets underway Friday night in San Francisco as the reigning World Series Champs welcome in the first place Colorado Rockies. The Rockies are currently four games ahead of the Giants after both teams lost Thursday, but the Giants are $1.15 favorites on the betting line.
The pitching matchup for Friday’s opener looks like a good one with Colorado’s Ubaldo Jiminez taking on San Francisco’s Matt Cain, but looks can be deceiving. Jiminez has been nowhere near as effective this year as he was last year, as he has started the season 0-2 with a 7.20 ERA in four starts. The team has lost all four times he’s taken the baseball.
Jiminez is coming off his worst outing yet as he lasted only four innings in an 8-4 loss to the Pirates on Sunday. It was a terrible loss if you bet the Rockies on the money line as they were -185 favorites. Jiminez also matched a franchise record with three wild pitches in the game.
With one exception, Cain has been effective in every start this season. Unfortunately, that one bad start did come against Colorado as he allowed six runs in four and two-thirds innings in a 10-2 Giants loss. Cain has a career 3.22 ERA in 23 starts vs. the Rockies, so history says that was an atypical performance.
Cain’s loss was the only one suffered by the team in a three-game set at Coors Field that took place April 18-20. Jiminez also lost his start in that series, surrendering four runs in five innings of a 6-3 loss as -140 favorites.
Totals players may want to keep an eye on the Under here. Looking at the previous 17 meetings, 14 have gone Under. Tonight’s total is very low at 6.5, however, which is more reflective of the Jiminez of last season.
San Francisco should be glad to finally be playing some home games. So far they’ve played a MLB leading 22 road games and only nine at home. They went 5-5 on their most recent road trip, despite facing the Pirates, Nationals and Mets, all of whom are teams that the Giants should be beating consistently. They lost yesterday 5-2 to New York. The problem throughout the trip was a lack of hitting as the team hit a collective .216 and averaged only 2.3 runs per contest. It’s worth noting that San Francisco was swept by the Atlanta Braves in their last series at home.
Colorado has baseball’s best road record at 11-5, but lost in extra innings last night to the Arizona Diamondbacks, 3-2. Closer Houston Street, who was 11 for 11 in previous save opportunities, allowed two solo home runs in the bottom of the ninth.
