In 2025, the Colorado Rockies had a season to forget, with only a mid-August winning streak preventing them from finishing with the worst 162-game record in MLB history. Still, they finished 43-119 with the worst run differential of any team since the 1899 Cleveland Spiders.
But while expectations for the 2026 season are low — their win total is set at just 54.5 wins — anything can happen in baseball, and a new season brings new optimism. The Rockies will open their 2026 campaign tonight with a 7:10 p.m. ET game against the Miami Marlins on the road.
Colorado will start its de facto ace, Kyle Freeland, while Miami will counter with former Cy Young Award winner Sandy Alcantara, who’s looking to shake off a rough 2025 season of his own.
Let’s break down this matchup with some odds and lines at DraftKings Sportsbook.
Colorado Rockies at Miami Marlins prediction, preview
After their nightmare season, the Rockies made some moderate improvements during the offseason, signing a trio of solid starters in Jose Quintana, Tomoyuki Sugano, and Michael Lorenzen to help shore up a pitching staff that finished with an ERA 0.62 runs higher than the next-worst team. None of those starters is anywhere near an ace, but given that six of the seven Colorado players to start at least 10 games finished with negative WAR and all three of its new signings did, that has to be considered a massive step. The Marlins were less in need of making a move, since they nearly made the playoffs at 79-83, but they still made some solid upgrades, signing closer Pete Fairbanks and trading for Owen Caissie, a top prospect who mashed for Team Canada at the World Baseball Classic.
The Rockies will open up their season with Freeland, their only starter to record positive value last season, for the fifth time. Despite leading the league in losses, Freeland isn’t an awful pitcher, as he finished fourth in Cy Young Award voting in 2018. He has some strong underlying metrics, led by his 91st percentile walk rate and his 70th percentile run value on breaking pitches. Freeland did give up too many hard hits in 2025, posting just a seventh-percentile average exit velocity, but some of that was a result of pitching at high-altitude Coors Field. In his 16 starts on the road, Freeland pitched to a 4.37 ERA. He could be in line for a decent start against Miami, which recorded the 13th-lowest average exit velocity, registered barrels at the eighth-lowest rate, and posted an OPS 73 points lower against southpaws. However, the Marlins are set to start seven righties, forcing Freeland to throw his weaker sweeper in lieu of his typical curve.
Alcantara had stronger advanced metrics despite finishing with fewer WAR than Freeland last season. The Dominican posted positive pitching run value, throwing his fastball over 97 miles per hour on average and inducing grounders at a 72nd-percentile clip. He also finished the season strong, posting just a 2.68 ERA across his final eight starts (53.2 innings) of the season. Pitchers have also typically fared better in their second seasons after Tommy John surgery than their first, so it’s reasonable to expect some bounce-back from Alcantara this season. His weaknesses — a low whiff rate and a high hard-hit rate — should be somewhat mitigated tonight, given that Colorado finished with the highest whiff rate and eighth-lowest hard-hit rate in baseball last season. The Rockies also had an OPS 181 points lower on the road, the largest home-road split in the league, and they did nothing to address their offense during the offseason.
Colorado Rockies at Miami Marlins pick, best bet
Best Bet: Miami Marlins -1.5 (+109)
If Colorado wants to open its season up with a win, it has the right man on the mound, but Miami’s decision to start a righty-heavy lineup to counter Freeland’s curve could prove a prescient one. Plus, I’m still skeptical of the Rockies’ offense after they were the league’s worst road team in 2025, and Alcantara is due for a bounce-back campaign.
Strong Lean: Sandy Alcantara 6+ Strikeouts (-111)
Alcantara struck out six or more batters in six of his final eight starts of 2025, and while he’s unlikely to throw 100 pitches like he did in six of those eight starts, he shouldn’t need that many against a Colorado team that finished second in the league in strikeouts last season. Alcantara struggled in Spring Training and the World Baseball Classic, but 19 strikeouts in 15.2 innings definitely isn’t nothing.
