Please join me in welcoming the Rockies to town

The San Francisco Giants are squaring off with the Colorado Rockies for the third time this year, and for the third time they won’t be seeing former-Giant Kris Bryant.

While the Giants received a fair share of criticism for not shelling out the big bucks in pursuit of name-brand free agents, they certainly look smart for not matching the seven year, $182 million contract that Colorado gave him.

Bryant has only played in 17 games this season, and has hit rather poorly in those 17. Hopefully he gets healthy and starts playing well, but until then, the Giants will be quite happy to have passed on that deal.

But they’ll be happier if they win this series.

Series details

Who: San Francisco Giants vs. Colorado Rockies
Where: Oracle Park, San Francisco, California
When: Tuesday (6:45 p.m. PT), Wednesday (6:45 p.m. PT), and Thursday (12:45 p.m. PT)
National broadcasts: None

Projected starters:
Tuesday: Carlos Rodón vs. Germán Márquez
Wednesday: Alex Wood vs. Antonio Senzatela
Thursday: Alex Cobb vs. Austin Gomber

Where they stand

Giants

Record: 29-24, 3rd in the NL West
Run differential: +30, 4th in the NL
Postseason standing: 3rd Wild Card, 5.5 games out of the division
Momentum: 1-game winning streak, 5-5 in their last 10 games

Rockies

Record: 23-31, 5th in the NL West
Run differential: -63, 13th in the NL
Postseason standing: 6.5 games out of the Wild Card, 12 games out of the division
Momentum: 4-game losing streak, 3-7 in their last 10 games

Season series: Giants lead 5-1

Three Giants to watch

Photo by Eric Espada/Getty Images

Brandon Crawford: DJ BC Raw is having a solid season, thanks to some quality defense and offense that’s within shouting distance of league average. But if the Giants want to transform from the good team they currently are to the great team they were a year ago, Crawford returning to All-Star form would go a long ways. The Rockies are bringing a pair of righties to the series, so the time is ripe for Crawford.

Mike Yastrzemski: Speaking of lefties getting to hit righties, don’t look now but Yaz has very comfortably been the team’s best position player this year, and has a chance at nabbing that All-Star selection that he would have earned in 2020 had it not been canceled. Yaz is drawing a ton of walks (13.6% rate), not striking out much (18.1% rate), and hitting for a little bit of power, leading to a 142 wRC+. Against some hittable Rockies righties, he should get a chance to bump up those numbers.

Alex Cobb: Cobb continues to have a very good season that doesn’t look great because people stare at ERA. A 2.63 FIP, 2.36 xFIP, and +0.9 fWAR in just eight starts paint him as one of the top starters in baseball this year, despite the 5.73 ERA.

Three Rockies to watch

Photo by Ethan Mito/Clarkson Creative/Getty Images

Germán Márquez: The first starter the Giants will see is very hittable. Márquez has a 6.71 ERA and a 5.10 FIP on the year, and in 55 innings he’s issued 18 walks and allowed 11 home runs. With a WHIP of 1.618, even the injured Giants have to be chomping at the bit to face the righty.

Antonio Senzatela: The Giants have already faced Senzatela twice this year. They rocked him the first time, knocking him out of the game in the fourth inning after scoring five runs. He got knocked out for a different reason a week later, leaving before starting the third inning — when he was pitching well — due to an injury. Senzatela has been mediocre this year, with a 5.44 ERA and a 4.22 FIP. But, somewhat hilariously, he has just 14 strikeouts in 35 innings this year. The three strikeouts he had against the Giants in his two pre-injury innings tied his season high for an outing. I would love to actually dive into the data on this, but I get excited when the Giants face pitchers who can’t strike people out. He also has a WHIP just a hair inside of 2.000, which is ... really bad.

Austin Gomber: Yes, I’m just going through all three starting pitchers that the Giants will face. Gomber’s also not pitching all that well this year (6.54 ERA, 4.63 FIP), and the Giants rocked him when they faced him earlier, with five earned runs in 5.1 innings. Time to do that again, please.

The Giants split their last series, which 33% of y’all predicted. Let’s try again.