It's day baseball in the Mile High City where the Rockies send their ace Ubaldo Jimenez to the mound looking to broom the Cardinals and their ace Chris Carpenter.
Thanks to Jorge De La Rosa, baseball bettors and fans alike will get a double-yummy pitching matchup in Thursday's series finale at Coors Field.
No, De La Rosa isn't going to be on the mound when the Rockies and Cardinals close out their three-game set. The left-hander went on the DL back in late April after going 3-1 with a 3.91 ERA in his first four starts of the '10 campaign. De La Rosa is healed now, has finished his rehab stint and will start for Colorado on Friday.
But if not for the timing of De La Rosa's return, the head-to-head duel between St. Louis' Chris Carpenter (13-5, 3.16) and Ubaldo Jimenez (15-2, 2.27) of the Rockies might not have come off.
MLB betting for the matinee in Denver opened with the Rockies drawing 140-150 chalk. The total came out at 7½ but was quickly pushed down to seven-plain and favoring the 'over.'
Adding to the pitching matchup is Colorado shooting for the sweep after St. Louis blew late leads in the first two games. Tuesday's opener saw the Rockies embarrass the Cards with a nine-run ninth for a 12-9 win. Colorado closed as 145 favorites for that one. Wednesday was your basic pick 'em contest and the Rocks scored another comeback win. Colorado tied the game in the eighth with three runs then plated a single tally in the ninth for an 8-7 victory.
The only numbers anyone should need to hear when it comes to these two hurlers stem from both having their worst outings of 2010 last Saturday. San Francisco jumped on Jimenez for seven runs in six innings in an 11-8 win, cashing $2.00 for Giants backers. Carpenter lasted just three innings at home to the Brewers, giving up eight runs (seven earned) in a 12-5 loss with 190 chalk on his back.
Jimenez really has had three straight rough starts, though Colorado managed to win two of them. Thursday is his normal day to pitch, so that shouldn't be a problem. But given the way the calendar works out, Jimenez' next start could be Tuesday in Anaheim at the All-Star Game, again on normal four-day rest.
If De La Rosa hadn't been ready to return – and his rehab numbers say maybe he isn't – Jhoulys Chacin would have started Thursday with Jimenez getting an extra day off. It will be interesting to see how Jim Tracy brings his ace back after the midseason break.
Thursday's umpire for the series finale will be Bruce Dreckman, the field arbiter who wears the #1 on his uniform in case you're inclined to notice stuff like that. His lean has been to the 'under' by a 10-7 margin in previous plate assignments, but that has started to trend to the high side with the 'over' 5-1 his last six games.
Dreckman has worked three games this season that involved either the Cards or Rocks. He was behind the plate May 9 in Los Angeles with Jimenez facing Clayton Kershaw and the Dodgers. That was the one and only loss to date that Jimenez has on his scorecard, a 2-0 Los Angeles win as small 'dogs. He hasn't seen Carpenter yet this season, with the two Cardinals games he worked splitting the totals and both ending in St. Louis defeats.
Cloudy skies are listed for the Denver area on Thursday afternoon with a high of 70ºF forecast. Winds are listed as "light and variable" by the good folks at The Weather channel.
The Cardinals will catch a flight to Houston after the game for three this weekend against the Astros. The Rockies will remain at home to host the Padres in a crucial, NL West series.
NOTE: The W-L records shown for starting pitchers are their team's W-L mark when they started games in the 2010 season. Statistical sources for this article were Retrosheet.org, Baseball-Reference.com, ESPN.com and, of course, S-BEE-R-dot-com!
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