Last season, the Toronto Blue Jays came within four outs of winning a World Series, and this season, they might be the only team in the AL East not to make the postseason at all. The Tampa Bay Rays, New York Yankees, and Boston Red Sox have basically locked up spots, and the Baltimore Orioles are just one game behind the Cleveland Guardians (with the Blue Jays a further half-game back).
After a sweep over the Athletics, the Orioles will seek to keep the pressure on the Guardians by sweeping a three-game road series this week against the Colorado Rockies, who dwell in the NL’s cellar.
Tonight’s series opener is set to begin at 8:40 p.m. ET. Cade Povich will start for Baltimore, while Tanner Gordon will toe the rubber for Colorado.
Let’s break down this inter-league battle with some odds and lines at DraftKings Sportsbook.
Baltimore Orioles at Colorado Rockies Best Bets
- Baltimore Orioles -1.5 (+108): The Rockies have lost eight of Gordon’s nine road outings this season by at least three runs, and he has a 7.89 ERA at home. Poich doesn’t have a particularly high bar to clear.
- Pete Alonso 1+ Home Runs (+224): Alonso has eight homers in 18 career games at Coors Field and has posted a .791 xSLG against right-handed four-seamers this season. He should feast on a pitcher who ranks in just the eighth percentile in ground-ball rate.
Baltimore Orioles at Colorado Rockies prediction, preview
Sweeping the Athletics was more expected than impressive for the Orioles, given the Athletics’ MLB-worst run differential, but wins are wins, and since the All-Star break, Baltimore has picked up a respectable 22 of those in 40 games. The Orioles have remained league-average on offense this month despite trading away Adley Rutschmann and Taylor Ward, as Pete Alonso has an OPS north of 1.000 this month and Blaze Alexander has just returned to the lineup after missing nearly two months with a hand fracture. Furthermore, Baltimore has figured out its bullpen issues, as its relievers have pitched to an impressive 3.19 ERA across the second half of the season so far. Trading away Tyler Wells (the only pitcher with more than 50 innings pitched for the team and a sub-3 ERA) has hurt slightly, but Alex Hoppe has thrown 8.2 innings across 10 appearances and has yet to give up an earned run. Plus, Josh Walker pitched only sparingly prior to the Midsummer Classic but has not conceded a run since August 2. If the Orioles’ bullpen stays hot and Alexander returns to his pre-injury form, there’s a non-zero chance that Baltimore could win a playoff series.
Now that the Rockies have fallen four games behind the San Francisco Giants after a sweep at the hands of the Atlanta Braves, it looks likely that they’ll finish with the worst record in the NL for the fourth consecutive season in addition to racking up a fourth straight 100-loss season. There have still been some bright spots for Colorado; its offense has been baseball’s sixth-best this month and fourth-best for the season as a whole, as Hunter Goodman has emerged as arguably baseball’s best offensive catcher and TJ Rumfield, Cole Carrigg, and Zac Veen have had solid rookie campaigns. The Rockies’ starters have been problematic, though; they’ve pitched to a 6.66 ERA in the second half of the season so far, undoing the work of a Jordan Romano- and Brennan Bernardino-led bullpen that has posted a sub-4 ERA this month. If Colorado ever recruits quality starters — which has long proven to be a challenge, given Coors Field’s hitter-friendly conditions — it has enough offensive and bullpen talent to conceivably snap its seven-season playoff drought some time in the coming seasons.
Povich has made just six appearances (five starts) in the majors this season after being part of the rotation in 2024 and 2025, recording a 4.45 ERA in those outings. He’s also registered a 5.46 ERA across two minor league levels this season, though he most recently pitched 5.2 innings of two-hit, shutout ball with 11 strikeouts for Triple-A Norfolk last Tuesday. He hasn’t pitched enough innings to qualify for Statcast leaderboards this season, but he had just a sixth-percentile expected ERA in 2025. Last season, his only notable strength was a 61st-percentile strikeout rate, which, to be fair, should exacerbate one of the Rockies’ biggest weaknesses. In both 2025 and 2026, Povich struggled to limit hard contact, as he finished in the bottom decile in average exit velocity, barrel rate, and hard-hit rate last season, but he might be able to get away with it against Colorado tonight, given that the Rockies rank in the bottom five in all three stats. Povich has also posted a slightly lower ERA on the road this season, so that should help against a Colorado team that has had the fifth-best home OPS.
Gordon has done a mix of work as a starter and a long reliever this season, although he’s completed at least four innings in 13 of his 19 innings and last pitched on Wednesday, so he should be in line for a relatively normal starter’s load. That start on Wednesday, in fact, was his best outing of the season, as he pitched seven innings of one-run ball to lower his season ERA to 5.38. All in all, advanced numbers suggest that he’s gotten fairly unlucky, as his 4.40 xERA is basically on par with Bradish’s. He also has baseball’s lowest walk rate, so he should help mitigate one of the Orioles’ biggest strengths. However, that’s just about the only area in which Gordon has truly thrived, as he has just a 24th-percentile whiff rate and a 26th-percentile strikeout rate, making him a bad matchup against a boom-or-bust Baltimore team. Additionally, he ranks in the bottom sextile in barrel rate, hard-hit rate, and average exit velocity, and the Orioles lead the league in each of the two latter stats. Furthermore, Gordon has posted an atrocious 7.89 ERA at Coors Field, in part because of his eighth-percentile ground ball rate, and Baltimore has put up similar production whether at home or on the road.
Baltimore Orioles at Colorado Rockies pick, best bet
Best Bet: Baltimore Orioles -1.5 (+108)
It might not be worth reading too much into a 43.1-inning sample size of Gordon at Coors Field this season, but a 7.89 mark is pretty eye-popping, and the Orioles are coming off of back-to-back multi-run victories.
Strong Lean: Pete Alonso 1+ Home Runs (+224)
This one might almost be too simple, but backing Alonso when he’s been in hot form to go deep at a venue where he has eight homers in 18 career games and a 1.200 OPS against Gordon at a venue at which he’s struggled seems reasonable.
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