There may not be much of a chill in the air yet, but September has finally arrived as the MLB regular season hits the home stretch. Monday’s slate brings a handful of early afternoon contests, with the Colorado Rockies (39-98) hosting the San Francisco Giants (68-69) for what’s sure the be a lovely day of baseball at Coors Field.
Here’s a Rockies vs. Giants prediction and pick on DraftKings Sportsbook for Monday’s contest.
Rockies vs. Giants prediction, preview
While the Rockies were long since eliminated from postseason contention, this game still holds some stakes for the Giants. San Francisco sits five games back of the final NL Wild Card spot as they claw tooth and nail to make it back above the .500 mark. They’ve surged over their last eight games with seven wins in that span, including a series victory over the NL-best Milwaukee Brewers as well as 15 and 13-run performances against the Baltimore Orioles in two of their last three contests. If the offensive explosion and recent success are a sign of things to come, there’s hope on the horizon for San Francisco moving forward.
Over the last two weeks, the Giants rank sixth in batting average (.259), fifth in OPS (.806), fourth in runs (75) and third in home runs (24). A major key to that success is Rafael Devers, whose bat finally woke up with a .291/.397/.592 slash line in August while bashing nine homers. After the trade which sent the star to San Francisco a couple of months back, his potential reversion to his Boston Red Sox form at the plate may end up the key that sneaks his team into the playoffs. The Giants’ pitching staff has regressed a smidge in the last two weeks, but they’re still 12th in ERA (4.07) over the last month, though the WHIP falls to 17th (1.31).
The Rockies saw some success coming out of the All-Star break and closed August with a top-five average (.263) and the 15th-best OPS (.734). While they’ve still continued losing more often than not, Colorado showed some surprising fight over the last month and certainly put some efforts forth that they can build on moving into the future. Hunter Goodman keeps playing solid ball all around and hit seven homers in August, while Brenton Doyle posted a 1.027 OPS with seven homers of his own. The win column won’t come easily though, especially since the offense as a whole has slumped back to 21st in average (.241), 26th in OPS (.663), and 25th in runs (47) in the last two weeks. Their league-worst pitching staff also needs no introduction with a 6.91 ERA and 1.65 WHIP over the last 30 days.
Rockies vs. Giants pick, best bet
DraftKings Sportsbook lists the Giants as -143 favorites on the Moneyline while the Rockies are +117 themselves. The run total sits at a very high 11.5.
There’s absolutely a reason that total reads so high tonight. For one, there’s the Coors Field bump due to altitude in Denver. However, the pitching matchups also imply offensive opportunities as Rockies righty Chase Dollander (6.55 ERA, 1.60 WHIP, 75 SO) battles Giants right-hander Kai-Wei Teng (8.78 ERA, 1.73 WHIP, 12 SO). The latter has thrown just 13.1 innings this season, so while the sample remains small, it’s easy to see why these hurlers set up the scoring.
This feels like a game to avoid taking the run line for the Giants in — it’s simply too tough to trust their starter in this environment. However, I do feel very confident there will be plenty of runs scored, particularly for San Francisco against Dollander. He’s pitched 88 innings with those poor rate stats and the Giants’ lineup looks alive at the right time. It simply sets up a big day on offense for the visitors, especially since Dollander posts a 24th-percentile K% and won’t get the better of a batting order that can prove prone to the strikeout at times. Perhaps this is a bold take, but I like over 6.5 runs for San Francisco at +110 odds, especially after they went over that mark in three of their last five contests.
Best bet: SF Giants over 6.5 runs (+110)
Click the odds on this bet to tail!
