The Colorado Rockies can beat the San Diego Padres and the MLB odds this Thursday – if their former Cy Young candidate delivers.
Colorado Rockies vs. San Diego Padres
Thursday 29, July, 2021 10:10 PM EDT at Petco Park
There’s something about pitching for the Colorado Rockies that just messes people up. Look at what happened to Kyle Freeland: In 2018, he finished fourth in National League Cy Young Award voting after going 17-7 with a franchise-record 2.84 ERA, and one year later, Freeland was demoted to the minors. It’s the circle of life.
Freeland did bounce back somewhat last year after making some adjustments to his delivery, but it’s all falling apart again. So why aren’t we recommending the San Diego Padres for Thursday’s matchup with Colorado? Because the MLB picks compel us. The Padres have opened up as –280 home faves on the overseas MLB lines, and if that holds up once our preferred online sportsbooks weigh in, that’s too chalky a price for San Diego.
They Aren’t What We Thought They Were
This is becoming old hat for the Padres. After getting smacked around 10-4 by the Oakland Athletics (+110 away) on Wednesday, San Diego find themselves in third place in the NL West at 59-45. Not bad, but still rather disappointing for a team that went into the 2021 campaign as +750 third favorites as per Bovada (visit our Bovada Review) to win the World Series.
If you had bet one unit on each Padres game, you’d be down 4.87 units right now. San Diego’s pitchers are getting most of the blame here, but while everyone’s swooning over Fernando Tatis Jr (1.029 OPS), the Padres batting order ranks ninth overall in hitting value at FanGraphs, judging by their plus-14.9 Wins Above Replacement (WAR). Combine that with San Diego’s No. 10-ranked pitching (plus-10.6 WAR), and you get a pretty good team overall, nothing more – although adding 2B Adam Frazier (.836 OPS) ahead of Friday’s trade deadline might help a bit.
A Cup Of Joe
You certainly can’t blame Joe Musgrove (3.54 FIP) for everything that’s going on. He’s arguably been San Diego’s best starter this year, but the Padres are still just 10-9 (minus-2.09 units) when he takes the mound. And maybe that crackdown on sticky stuff has actually thrown Musgrove off a bit; he has just four quality starts in nine attempts since the start of June.
Not that the Rockies (44-57, minus-3.45 units heading into Wednesday’s action) are doing all that great themselves, or that Freeland (5.34 FIP, 4-7 team record, minus-2.30 units) provides any sneaky value on the MLB lines. But the fine folks at FiveThirtyEight threw all the numbers in a blender, and they’ve got San Diego winning Thursday’s game 70 percent of the time, which translates to a vig-free moneyline of –233 using the glorious BMR Odds Converter. There’s no value to be had on the public Padres, nor do we want the underdog Rockies if they’re going to be priced around +225 like they are overseas.
Here’s an option, though: the Under. It’s 26-21 for the Rockies thus far when they’re away from Coors Field, and 9-2 in 11 overall starts for Freeland; Musgrove has the Over at 10-9, making him a neutral commodity on that front, but he did lose 3-0 (Under 7.5) to the Rockies at Petco Park back on July 10, and there’s a more forgiving 8.5-run total overseas for the rematch. Thursday should be another humid West Coast summer night at the park, too.
MLB Pick: Under 8 (100) at Bovada (visit our Bovada Review)
*The line and/or odds on picks in this article might have moved since the content was commissioned. For updated line movements, visit BMR’s free betting odds product.
