Take The Over In Rockies Vs. Padres

Rockies vs. Padres, 9:40 ET

Baseball's Opening Day saw a lot of good games yesterday, and only a few bad ones. I'm sure the Padres would consider their game yesterday as one of the bad ones, but I thought it was engaging with the Rockies taking the opener of this four-game set. Now we see them back for game two and ready to square off once again.

The Rockies are above .500 on the road! Sure, it is just one game, but I can't remember the last time that I actually saw them above .500 in the standings away from Coors Field. They were able to break out the bats against the Padres yesterday. Their lineup looked great with at least three hits from their second, third, and fourth hitters. C.J. Cron was able to hit two home runs and drive in five RBIs on an Opening Day for him to remember. Today they have Kyle Freeland taking the mound for them. Freeland was part of the World Baseball Classic and pitched in the first game against Great Britain. He looked really good going three innings, allowing one run on two hits and striking out three hitters. This isn't a surprise at all, but he is much better on the road than he is at home. He has a lower road ERA than home ERA since 2018. He struggled against the Padres last year, but was slightly better at PETCO in his two starts. He allowed four earned runs over 11.2 innings.

The Padres have high hopes this season and have continued to leave the wallet open so they can put together a contending team for multiple years. They didn't have a great first game with only newcomer Xander Bogaerts having a memorable day. Now they find themselves relying on some of their stopgap starters for the rest of this series as Joe Musgrove and Yu Darvish are on the injured list, and Blake Snell was the starter yesterday. They send Nick Martinez to the mound to try and even up the series already. Martinez was a starter and reliever last season with 47 appearances, 10 of them coming as starts. Now they are hoping he can put together some innings in the early going of this season. He did start against Colorado twice last season and went 10.2 innings over those starts with five earned runs allowed. His home start was the better of the two starts.

I think the Padres bats will make a better impact today and I also think that the Rockies are going to get some runs off of Martinez. Neither pitcher is someone I have faith in limiting the damage. I expect both teams to allow at least three runs in the game and am going to take the over 7.5 runs.

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