MLB Picks - Blue Jays vs Rockies Monday, June 27th, 2016

Colorado continues to truly have a rough time and around this writing they had lost two of the first three games within their series vs the Diamondbacks. As always at home it's their pitching that struggles and they allowed 22 runs in the first three games of the series and the Rockies now have a 6.35 ERA at home, that is the worst home ERA mark in the league. That is clearly a reason they are under .500 here at Coors. Oh sure their offense averages over six runs per game at home, but their pitching continues to be quitting more. Arizona is 29th in the league in home ERA at 5.28 so you can see just how bad this staff is here at home.

 

The Talk of this series could be the return of Troy Tulowitzki, but his replacement Trevor Story is having a heck of an initial year up to now and it will soon be fun to see who has the better series. Story is hitting .266 with 18 homers and 49 RBIs thus far, while Tulo is hitting just .217, with 10 homers and 28 RBIs. Looks just like the Rockies have the better player at SS right now.  

 

The Rockies enter this game ranked 3rd in the league in scoring, putting up 5.24 rpg, while also ranking 3rd in hitting at .274 and 6th in homers with 98. The Rockies have hit .297 overall at home, including .288 vs lefties. Colorado has averaged 5.97 rpg and have allowed 6.74 rpg at home for the year. On the mound they have not been good at all as they come in ranked 28th in the league in ERA at 5.05 while also ranking 27th in WHIP at 1.43. At home Colorado starters have an ERA of 6.33, while their pen has an ERA of 6.38. Toeing the rubber for the Rockies will be Jon Gray, who has gone 4-3 with a 4.80 ERA in 12 starts this year, including 0-1 with a 3.71 ERA in his last three starts and 2-0 with a 5.02 ERA in five starts here at home. Gray is now 2-1 with a 6.39 ERA in 10 starts here at Coors in his career and 1-0 with a 4.70 ERA in three career interleague starts. This is his first meeting with the Blue Jays.

 

I like the pitching edge that the Blue Jays have here, but even more so I like the fact of this rejuvenated Toronto offense taking their swings here in Colorado. Tulowitzki has struggled for the Blue Jays but he has hit .321 with a 106 homers and 385 RBIs here at Coors when he was a member of the Rockies. I look for him to have a nice series, along with Donaldson, Encarnacion and the rest of the Blue Jays lineup. Colorado has a good offense for sure but I feel that Estrada can keep that offense under wraps in this one. MLB Picks Blue Jays take game one.