It’s been a long time since things have looked this good in the North. Three games into August, the Toronto Blue Jays sit atop the AL East, tied for the Junior Circuit’s best record and three games ahead of the Boston Red Sox in the division. They’ll enter a series against the league’s worst team, the Colorado Rockies, who — at 30-81 — are just on pace to avoid finishing with the worst 162-season record in history.
The three-game series will start with an 8:40 p.m. first pitch tonight at Coors Field. Tanner Gordon will toe the rubber for the home team, while Eric Lauer will start for the Blue Jays.
Let’s break down this matchup with some odds and lines at DraftKings Sportsbook.
Toronto Blue Jays at Colorado Rockies prediction, preview
The run total for this game is high — 12 runs — which should underscore just how dominant each offense has been in the second half of the season. Colorado’s mark is actually higher, as its .839 OPS ranks second in the league and Toronto’s .819 OPS ranks fourth, but either way, there should be plenty of fireworks. The Rockies are coming off a series victory in which they went down 9-0 in the first inning against the Pittsburgh Pirates on Friday before making a miraculous comeback to win, 17-16, and are 8-7 overall since the All-Star break. That’s only a marginally worse mark than the Blue Jays, who have actually lost six of their last eight.
Toronto has a good chance at getting back on track behind Lauer, who been stellar in his first MLB campaign after posting a 4.93 ERA in seven games with the Korean Baseball Organization’s Kia Tigers in 2024. The 30-year-old got called up on April 30 to make his team and American League debut and has not given up more than three runs in any outing, and since joining the rotation full-time, he’s posted a 3.00 ERA in nine starts as the Blue Jays have gone 7-2. The fact that he gives up hard hits at just a 15th-percentile rate and grounders at a sixth-percentile rate might come back to bite him at Coors Field, but his plus-plus fastball and slider should make him an effective option regardless.
Lauer is a better pitcher than Gordon, although the 27-year-old has at least recorded positive WAR, which is something that his fellow rotation members Antonio Senzatela, Bradley Blalock, Chase Dollander, and Germán Márquez can’t say. In five starts this season, Gordon has given up two or fewer earned runs thrice, including six scoreless innings on July 23, which was Colorado’s first home shutout since May 15, 2024. But he couldn’t keep the good times rolling against the Cleveland Guardians the following week, conceding eight hits and seven runs (six earned) in three innings of work. He carries a bottom-decile whiff rate into a matchup with the league’s best contact-hitting team, a recipe for disaster given that the Rockies have the fourth-worst fielding team in baseball.
Toronto Blue Jays at Colorado Rockies pick, best bet
Best Bet: Under 12 (-111)
I hate to be pessimistic to fans of offense — and, really, who isn’t a fan of offense? — but both teams’ gaudy offensive numbers have been skewed in part by high-scoring individual games. Lauer is capable of keeping Colorado’s offense in check, and he’s backed up by a bullpen that recently added Seranthony Domínguez, who had three great outings for Toronto before surprisingly imploding last night.
Strong Lean: Toronto Blue Jays -2.5 Alternate Spread (-103)
This bet follows logically from the first one: although the Rockies are in better form than the Blue Jays, I’m just a believer in Lauer, and Toronto is uniquely suited to take advantage of Gordon’s weaknesses.
