Rockies vs. Padres Predictions
| Rockies Odds | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spread | Total | Moneyline |
+1.5 +108 | 7 -118o / -104u | +240 |
| Padres Odds | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spread | Total | Moneyline |
-1.5 -130 | 7 -118o / -104u | -295 |
The Colorado Rockies (13-28) will look to clinch a series victory tonight against the San Diego Padres (22-22) after taking game one of the series on Monday by a score of 5-4.
Dylan Cease has had an ideal start to the season and will get to continue his dominance tonight against a Colorado team that hasn’t hit well away from home.
Let’s take a dive into Rockies vs. Padres for a pick and MLB odds and predictions for May 14.
Colorado Rockies
Colorado has had a shaky start to the season, which was to be expected, but its 13-28 record is the third-worst mark in baseball to this point. The Rockies have been astonishingly bad on the road, with a record of just 4-16 compared to 9-12 at home.
Cal Quantrill will take the mound for the Rockies tonight. The right-hander has thrown 45.2 innings this year with just 31 strikeouts. He has a 3.94 ERA but a 4.12 xERA and 5.02 FIP. Quantrill has been aided a bit by his 80.1% strand rate, which has been 74.4% for his career.
Quantrill ranks 52nd out of 80 pitchers in Stuff+ and 72nd in Location+, giving him a Pitching+ ranking of 74th. He ranks 44th in barrel rate, 22nd in exit velocity allowed and 37th in hard-hit rate.
He struggles to limit hard contact but also doesn’t make batters swing and miss, which isn’t exactly a recipe for success.
Quantrill’s main strength is that he induces ground balls at a fairly high rate, ranking 73rd percentile in ground-ball percentage. The Padres are right around league average in ground-ball rate as a team, so we shouldn’t see this accentuated to the extremes in this matchup.
The Rockies rank 29th in wRC+ and 20th in wOBA. They're 24th in barrel rate, 16th in exit velocity and 12th in hard hit rate. When looking at home/road splits, their wOBA drops from 10th at home and 20th overall to just 28th in away games.
Colorado also strikes out at the second-highest rate in baseball and walks at the fourth-lowest rate, which should bode well for Cease.
San Diego Padres
Cease has been one of the better starters in MLB this season. The Padres went out and traded for him in March, which appears to be one of the better moves made at that point in the offseason.
Through eight starts, Cease has a 2.19 ERA, 2.79 xERA and 2.27 FIP over 49.1 innings pitched. His Stuff+ of 120 ranks third out of 80 qualifying pitchers in MLB. He has a 92nd-percentile fastball velocity and also 99th-percentile breaking pitch run value.
Cease’s whiff rate and strikeout rate rank in the 95th and 93rd percentile, respectively.
Where Cease has struggled at times this year is in his location and quality-of-contact metrics. He's in the 12th percentile in barrel rate and the 30th percentile in average exit velocity allowed.
He ranks 61st out of 80 pitchers in Location+ as well, which is largely the reason for any struggles he's had.
Luckily for Cease, he's playing an opponent in Colorado that doesn’t flash a lot of good contact metrics, so I wouldn’t be extremely worried about this matchup taking place in Petco Park.
The Padres’ offense has been strong to start the season, ranking sixth in wRC+ and eighth in wOBA. Part of this is that they strikeout at the third-lowest rate in baseball, so expect them to put plenty of balls in play against Quantrill, who lacks swing-and-miss stuff.
In terms of contact quality, the Padres are just average. They're 15th in exit velocity, 18th in barrel rate and 14th in hard-hit rate. Much of their damage is done from hitting line drives up the middle, as they're second in line-drive rate and have the highest rate of balls hit in the center of the field.
Rockies vs. Padres
Betting Pick & Prediction
San Diego is already a heavy favorite in this matchup, and for good reason. Cease is one of the better pitchers in MLB, and he'll be taking on a lineup that's struggled to make contact this year and hasn't been as good away from home as you would expect.
Quantrill is a ground-ball heavy pitcher who'll be facing a lineup that doesn’t hit an extraordinarily high rate of ground balls but that's above average by most metrics.
Even with the Padres as heavy favorites, I trust Cease to keep pitching like an ace against this weak Rockies lineup. Quantrill isn’t a pitcher that scares me in any way, and I believe that the Padres will be able to get to him.
I like taking the Padres to have the lead after the first five innings at -166 tonight in this matchup.
