Giants at Rockies, 9/3: Labor Day

Reminder: yes, this is the thread.

This marks the third holiday of the year where the Giants play at Coors Field. If you wonder why you suddenly hated Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and Labor Day, there it is.

Here’s a link to the Series Preview, in case you were super bored and wanted something to read before first pitch or even the game. The Giants thwarted themselves yesterday in their quest for a 69th win and will try again today.

Unfortunately, there’s not much they will be able to do against the Rockies in this series, as the Rockies are a baseball team. The siren song of .500 might finally have ceased.

Lineups:

Brandon Belt hurt his knee yesterday, so that’s why he’s out today. You see that Brandon Crawford’s knee has stopped bothering him, and so, he’ll play for the first time in a few days. The rest of that lineup definitely meets the Major League requirement of fielding nine players to participate in a scheduled competition and I wish them all well in their quest to accumulate service time and works towards a fully-vested pension.

(Unrelated, but related: per Mike Krukow on the NBC Sports Bay Area broadcast yesterday, Pablo Sandoval reached his 10 years of service time and officially vested.)

Fully vesting in retirement benefits is important. It was accomplished because of unionization, which we celebrate today.

Oh, and here’s the Rockies lineup:

Ohhhhh yeah, that’s really Matt Holliday, the one you remember from the Cardinals and, before, the Rockies. He’s only 4-for-25 lifetime against Bumgarner, but he’s 7-for-18 since the Rockies called him up on August 23rd. He’s 38 and, it would seem, feeling great.

Madison Bumgarner’s past two starts have come against the Mets and the Diamondbacks. He was lights out in both, accumulating 13 strikeouts in 15 innings, while allowing 9 hits, 1 walk, and 1 earned run. As Kenny noted late last week, his velocity is down and that seems to be a permanent situation, but he’s making it work. We’ll see if his adjustment to becoming an ornery, but crafty, lefty works in Coors Field.

He pitched in that July 4th series and got the L in a 5-2 loss. He allowed three runs (2 earned) in six innings, gave up 8 hits, walked 3, and struck out 5. He’s pitched 84.2 innings in 14 career starts at Coors Field and sports a 3.93 ERA a mile high. Somehow, he’s allowed only 8 home runs at Coors, but his 1.429 WHIP there is his worst total in any NL West park, and the third-worst in stadiums where he’s had two more starts.

The Rockies top 4 offensive players I identified in the Series Preview are a combined 25-for-102 with 8 home runs off of Madison Bumgarner (Trevor Story brings down the average with a 2-for-17). Go get ‘em.

Tyler Anderson pitched 8 shutout innings against the Giants on the 4th of July, securing their worst showing in the history of Coors Field. He struck out 9, walked 2 and gave up 2 hits in that start, only the second time he’d faced the Giants.

The Giants are stacking the lineup with their available right-handed hitters, but oddly, the lefty has had a reverse platoon split this season (left-handed hitters have a .902 OPS against him in 133 PA, righties are hitting .733 in 492). Both Brandon Crawford and Gorkys Hernandez have homered off of him.

Every game the Giants lose in this series helps the Rockies get closer to surpassing the Dodgers for the lead in the NL West.