The Colorado Rockies’ five-game visit with the San Diego Padres comes to a close in Thursday’s series finale between the NL West rivals. It hasn’t seemed like much of a rivalry in this series with the Padres dominating with four straight wins at Petco Park.
The Rockies’ bats don’t work the same way they do back home at Coors Field, but they’ll try to end things on a high note before packing up and leaving to Arizona for the weekend. Kyle Freeland is slated to start at pitcher for the Rockies opposite of San Diego’s Joe Musgrove.
Kyle Freeland needs to stop the bleeding at the plate.
The Rockies offense is sputtering away from Coors Field, and they haven’t shown the firepower to keep pace with the Padres on the scoreboard. Can Freeland stand his ground on the rubber against a Padres team that’s rolling in this series?
He’ll have to if he hopes to avoid another good old-fashioned Colorado squashing on Thursday.
The lefty got blasted in his last head-to-head meeting with the Padres in a game where he gave up six hits and five runs in four innings. However, the Rockies had a swift offensive response to win that game, which is something they haven’t shown in the current series.
Freeland did bounce back in a big way with two impressive wins over the Los Angeles Dodgers and Milwaukee Brewers. If the offense continues to fall flat in the finale, the 29-ye ar-old starter might need to pitch a gem with a strong finish from his relievers. But then again, only the Cincinnati Reds and Washington Nationals have a worse ERA than the Rockies this season.