Colorado enters today at 49-74, two games behind the 51-72 Giants for fourth place in the NL West.
The Rockies are bad. I know the Rockies are bad. But I am still completely invested in these guys.
And for all the ugliness in the standings, there is still plenty worth caring about today:
A win would give the Rockies the season series, finish their nine-game road trip with a winning record, and pull them within one game of San Francisco inside the division.
The Rockies took Friday night’s opener before
dropping Saturday’s game 7-1 after one miserable fourth inning put the Giants in control.
Rookie right-hander Gabriel Hughes gets the ball for Colorado in his seventh major-league start.
Hughes enters at 0-4 with a 5.61 ERA, 1.28 WHIP and 31 strikeouts across 33.2 innings.
He posted a 3.33 ERA across 24.1 innings through his first five major-league appearances, four of them starts. Over his last two starts, Hughes has allowed 12 earned runs in 9.1 innings.
The underlying contact numbers remain considerably better than the ERA. Hughes owns a 3.03 xERA, while hitters have barreled only 4.1% of their batted balls against him with a 29.6% hard-hit rate.
Hughes throws his four-seam fastball roughly 57% of the time. It averages a little over 92 mph, though his 6.9 feet of extension helps it play a little faster, and he works five secondary pitches around it.
The concern lately has been his strike-throwing and ability to get hitters to expand.
Hughes had been at or above a 50% zone rate before falling to 41% two starts ago and 45% in his most recent outing. His fastball velocity was also down nearly a full mile per hour last time out.
His ability to get hitters to expand outside the zone has slipped, too. Hughes generated only a 19% chase rate in his last start.
When Hughes gets ahead, the secondary pitches give him enough ways to finish at-bats. The question is whether he can get back into those counts often enough.
The Giants counter with the recently recalled Blade Tidwell, who enters at 0-0 with a 2.78 ERA, 1.10 WHIP, and 19 strikeouts across 22.2 innings. Today will be his 11th appearance of the season but only his third start.
The 25-year-old right-hander is attacking hitters very differently than he did during his 2025 debut: His sweeper has jumped from 22% usage last season to 38% this year, while the four-seamer has fallen from 39% to 34%.
So far, that change has shown up in how hitters are reacting to him. Tidwell’s chase rate has climbed from 20.8% to 28.1%, while hitters have made contact on just 38.9% of their swings outside the zone after doing so 62.5% of the time last season. His walk rate has also fallen from 12.8% to 5.5%.
The sweeper was especially effective in his last outing, accounting for 12 of Tidwell’s 16 swings and misses.
But today’s matchup adds another layer to that profile.
Tidwell has led with the four-seam fastball 39% of the time against lefties, followed by the sweeper at 31%. Against righties, the sweeper jumps to 45% while the fastball drops to 29%.
Jordan Beck is the only Rockies hitter who will bat right-handed today, giving Tidwell eight left-handed looks.
The early platoon results make that construction even more interesting. Left-handed hitters have an .836 OPS against Tidwell across 44 batters faced this season, compared with a .373 OPS from right-handers across 47. Those are small samples, but they give the Rockies plenty of reason to make Tidwell prove the split will not hold.
Colorado has been aggressive early in counts this season, but it cannot let that aggression turn into easy chases when Tidwell goes with the sweeper.
Hunter Goodman remains out of the lineup after being scratched Saturday with shoulder inflammation. Zac Veen gets another start in right field, while Adael Amador will make his first start in the field since returning to the majors. He pinch-hit Saturday but had not appeared in the field in the big leagues since last season.
The details…
First Pitch: 2:05 p.m. MDT
TV: Rockies.TV
Radio: KOA 850 AM/94.1 FM
Giants SB Nation Site: McCovey Chronicles
Lineups:
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