Rockies vs. Diamondbacks Odds, Picks, Predictions: Fade Colorado on the Road (May 8)

Rockies vs. Diamondbacks Odds

After splitting their first two games by an identical 4-1 scoreline, the Rockies and Diamondbacks will decide the series winner on Sunday afternoon.

Colorado will try to get its right-handed pitcher, Germán Márquez, back on track, as he goes up against Arizona's Zac Gallen.

While both teams are ranked in the top three in terms of their profitability at the betting window, much of Colorado's success is derived from playing at home. As a result, bettors would be wise to continue to pay attention to Colorado's home/away splits when trying to find value in their matchups.

Let's dive into this one.

Rockies Likely to Face Regression Soon

Pitching in Colorado often means that Márquez gets overlooked as a starter. However, since his debut with the Rockies, he's 54-43 with a 4.36 ERA and a 1.28 WHIP.

Those are impressive numbers for a pitcher who spends most of his starts in a hitter-friendly park like Coors Field. Per Baseball-Reference, Márquez is 27-19 at home with a 4.82 ERA vs. 27-24 with a 3.90 ERA on the road. Those numbers confirm that he's more likely to benefit from Colorado's offense at home because of his higher win percentage (.587 vs. .529) despite a worse ERA.

However, Márquez appears to be struggling both home and away this season. Aside from his first start of the year, when he went seven innings and allowed one run against the Dodgers, Márquez has pitched poorly.

In his last 19 innings of work, he's allowed 19 earned runs. Marquez is almost unrecognizable from the pitcher who starred against the Dodgers, and while I'm sure that he still has quite a bit of quality remaining, I'd be more comfortable backing him in this spot if the Rockies were playing the game in Colorado.

Before the season, the Rockies had a projected win total as low as 68.5. After 27 games, Colorado is well ahead of that mark, given their 16-11 record. However, 11 of those 16 wins came at Coors Field as the Rockies are 5-6 on the road.

According to its Pythagorean expectation, Colorado is overachieving given its .593 winning percentage despite scoring fewer (125) runs than allowed (134). As a result, it's difficult to ignore the looming regression that's hovering over the Rockies like a dark cloud.

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Diamondbacks Have Advantage of Possible Quality Start

Bookmakers were even more bearish on the Diamondbacks as they opened with a win total of just 66.5 games. While the prospects looked grim for Arizona following a 3-7 start, the Diamondbacks have gone 11-7 over their next 18 games.

One of the reasons the Diamondbacks struggled early on was that Gallen's first start wasn't until April 16 due to injury. Since making his debut, he's 1-0 with a 1.27 ERA and 0.70 WHIP in 21 1/3 innings. More importantly, Arizona is 3-1 in his four starts.

In 54 career starts, Gallen is only 11-18, but he has a stellar 3.30 ERA and a 1.19 WHIP. If the Diamondbacks can continue to provide Gallen with run support, I'd back him to have another productive season. Gallen's still only 26 years old and has only pitched more than 100 innings once in his five-year career. As a result, he's still an undervalued commodity in the majors.

According to Baseball Savant, Gallen can throw six different pitches: a four-seamer (55.8%), a curveball (16.3%), a changeup (15.4%), a cutter (10.1%), a slider (2.1%) and a sinker (0.3%). Although he seldom uses his slider and his sinker, opposing hitters still have to account for his four other pitches, which he throws at least 10% of the time.

It's not often that a young pitcher has command of so many different pitches. Per FanGraphs, he's throwing more pitches inside the strike zone (44.8%), yet hitters have their lowest zone-contact rate (84.3%) against him.

Gallen's been able to pitch at least six innings in each of his last two outings. If he can continue to pitch deeper into games, the Diamondbacks should manage to win the majority of his starts.

Rockies-Diamondbacks Pick

Our BetLabs database shows that the Colorado Rockies have the second-best mark at home (+23.79 units) dating back to 2005. However, they also have the second-worst mark on the road at -107.31 units.

This certainly supports the narrative that you should continue to back the Rockies at home and fade them on the road. If we look at their season splits, Colorado has a .281/.348/.454 line at home vs. .230/.300/.366 on the road. There's certainly enough of a sample size to support our analysis.

As a result, I want no part of the Rockies on the road, so I can only look back to the home favorites in this spot.

Pick: Diamondbacks ML (-156)