MLB Betting Odds, Picks and Predictions (Sunday, July 26): Colorado Rockies at Texas Rangers

Colorado Rockies at Texas Rangers Odds

Odds as of early Sunday morning and via DraftKings. Get up to a $1,000 sign-up bonus at DraftKings today or see more offers and reviews for the best online sportsbooks.

The Colorado Rockies rebounded from Friday's loss with a 3-2 win to even their series with Texas Rangers. In a normal season, a rubber match between Colorado and Texas wouldn't really matter that much, but every game is critical this season.

Corey Kluber is a decent favorite to win his Rangers' debut. Is the market too high on Klubot on Sunday?

Colorado Rockies

Projected Lineup

Colorado rebounded with a win on Saturday but still only scored three runs on sixhits. That performance came on the heels of a three-hit showing agains Lance Lynn and a terrible Rangers' bullpen on Friday night.

The Rockies didn't make any moves to improve their offense over the offseason, but the top of their lineup remains loaded.

David Dahl, Trevor Story, Charlie Blackmon and Nolan Arenado combined for 484 wRC+ in 2019 but after those four guys the lineup drops off pretty hard. If the top of the lineup doesn't get the job done, it'll be hard for the Rockies to win.

Advanced Stats Glossary

Learn more about BaseRuns and how I use it to build my projections in a deep dive of my model.

FIP or Fielding Independent Pitching measures what a pitcher’s ERA would look like if the pitcher experienced league-average defense and luck. xFIP is a regressed version of FIP that adjusts or “normalizes’ the home run component based on park factors.

wRC+ or Weighted Runs Created Plus takes the statistic Runs Created and adjusts that number to account for critical external factors — like ballpark or era. It’s adjusted, so a wRC+ of 100 is league average, and 150 would be 50 percent above league average.

wOBA or Weighted On-Base Average is a catch-all hitting metric with more predictive value than on-base percentage. An average MLB hitter can be expected to post a .320 wOBA. xwOBA is a regressed version of wOBA that accounts for variables like park factors.

Rockies Probable Starter

Kyle Freeland, LHP

Projected Stats (ZIPS) (Via Fangraphs)

Pitch Arsenal (via Baseball Savant)

Kyle Freeland may have had a tremendous Wild Card Game performance two years ago, but he rates out as a below-average pitcher. He doesn't have any pitches that I would consider above average and he's prone to giving up a lot of hard-hit balls. In 2019, he ranked in the bottom-20 of all qualified pitchers with a 40.5% hard-hit rate.

He'll have to navigate a Rangers lineup that ranked fourth in hard-hit percentage a year ago.

Rangers

Projected Lineup

The Rangers were held in check in the first two games of the series, only producing three runs on 11 hits. They should have a good opportunity to score against Freeland, but Texas did rank 26th in wRC+ against left-handed pitching in 2019, so there is some cause for concern.

The Rangers were a middle of the road offense a year ago ranking 23rd in wRC+ and 16th in wOBA. The only real addition they made over the offseason was signing a past-his-primeTodd Frazier.

Rangers Probable Starter

Corey Kluber, RHP

Projected Stats (ZIPS) (Via Fangraphs)

Pitch Arsenal (via Baseball Savant)

Corey Kluber's 2019 season was cut short after fracturing his right forearm. He was then traded to the Rangers in the offseason as he and the Indians could not come to a contract agreement.

Kluber is getting up there in age, but his curveball is still elite. In 2018, opponents only had a .143 wOBA against it and struck out 77 times.

If Kluber can rebound from his 2019 injury he's still a top-end starting pitcher in the league.

Bullpens

With both games being very low scoring, both bullpens should be close to fully rested for this game. Even though both bullpens are pretty weak, the matchup is basically a wash.

Projections and Pick

Despite the Rangers having the advantage in the matchup of starting pitchers, I think the market is overvaluing them in this spot. So, I am going to back the Rockies to win and take the series.

The Pick: Rockies +138

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