MLB Odds, Picks & Predictions: Colorado Rockies vs. San Diego Padres (Wednesday, Sept. 9)

Rockies vs. Padres Odds

Odds as of Wednesday at 10 a.m. ET and via BetMGM. Get an INSTANT $500 deposit match at BetMGM today or see more offers and reviews for the best online sportsbooks.

The San Diego Padres took Game 2 of their series with the Colorado Rockies on Tuesday behind a 14-run offensive outburst. They now trail the Los Angeles Dodgers by 4.5 games in the American League West and have a strangle hold on the No. 4 seed in the playoff race.

The Rockies trail the San Francisco Giants by 1.5 games for the final playoff spot, so a win on Wednesday would be crucial.

Advanced Stats Glossary

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.

BaseRuns is a formula designed to estimate how many runs a team would be expected to score (or allow) given their underlying offensive (or defensive) performance. In other words, BaseRuns is a context-neutral run estimator used to evaluate teams. Major League average for an individual batter per game is 0.50 BaseRuns and a for a pitcher its 0.52 BaseRuns per inning.

Rockies Probable Starter

Antonio Senzatela, RHP

Projected & Actual Stats (via Fangraphs)

Pitch Arsenal (via Baseball Savant)

Senzatela has been better than his projections coming into the season, although thats not saying much. ZIPS had him projected for a 5.12 FIP, but he’s only allowed a 4.31 FIP so far this season.

Antonio Senzatela is your classic “fill up the zone” type of pitcher. He leans heavily on his fastball, keeping it low in the zone to produce a lot of ground balls (50% ground ball rate this).

This type of pitcher can be effective if his stuff is good and he is able to interchange pitches. Senzatela is not one of those guys.

His fastball isn’t great, yielding a .403 wOBA against in 2019. But its been better so far in 2020, with only .341 wOBA against (not that a 0.062 wOBA differential constitutes a huge improvement).

He’ll have a daunting task trying to get through the best lineup in baseball as the Padres are the best team against righties, fourth best against fastballs, and the best team against sliders.

Padres Projected Lineup

The Padres lineup has not only been the best in baseball this season, but they’ve been the hottest team over the past two weeks. In their last 13 games, they have a .377 wOBA, 168 wRC+, and have scored 87 runs.

They’ve also been the best lineup versus right handed pitching, checking in at a .353 wOBA and hitting a whopping 56 home runs. They’ll have a fantastic matchup on Wednesday night against a fastball heavy Senzatela and a tired Rockies bullpen.

Bullpens

The Rockies bullpen has been an unmitigated disaster as of late. Over the past two weeks, they’ve accumulated a 10.56 ERA and 5.44 xFIP, which ranks last in MLB. They’re also extremely tired at the moment having to pitch 15.1 innings over the last three days.

Projections and Pick

This line is way too high for me to put my faith in Zach Davies. So, instead I am going to look at the Padres team total. I have 5.56 runs projected for the Padres and FanDuel currently has the best line at four runs. I’m willing to back them over 4.5 runs and would play it up to -134.

Pick: Padres Team Total Over 4 (+104)

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