The Rockies (25-32) travel down the coast on Friday to kickoff a weekend series in San Diego against the Padres (35-22). Joe Musgrove takes the hill for the Padres and is opposed by Chad Kuhl of the Rockies.
Let’s start with Musgrove. So far in 2022 he has been one of the most dominant arms in the game. He is 6-0 with a 1.64 ERA. He is 10 for 10 in quality starts and hasn’t allowed more than 2 earned runs in any game. The xFIP sits at 3.26 so there is some negative regression on the horizon, but that is still elite. The K rate sits just under a batter an inning and the K/BB ratio sits at 4.57. No matter how you measure it he’s a force. Against the Rockies in 2021 he had 3 starts all which came in Petco. He went 18.1 IP allowing 1 ER in those 3 games and only 10 hits while striking out 23 Rockies hitters. In 25 games on the road this year the Rockies have scored a minuscule 77 runs good for 3.08 per game. They are also 27th in OPS on the road with a .636. Razzball’s Stream-o-nator values this start at +$60.0 for Musgrove, which is one of the higher values I have seen on there.
On the other side of things Chad Kuhl has overachieved for the Rockies boasting a 3.17 ERA. There is a lot of regression coming for Chad yet. He is allowing just .83 HR/9 this year even pitching at Coors. His last 3 seasons with Pittsburgh he was just shy of 1.5 HR/9. His K rate is sitting at only 6.83 K/9, his strand rate is above league average and the BABIP against is only sitting at .270. Only 3 of his 10 starts have come against teams with winning records and he gave up 5+ Earned runs in 2 of those. All these things lead me to believe there are worse days on the horizon. The Friars are not loading up on offense themselves especially at home where they are scoring only 3.76 runs per game themselves at Petco, but I don’t think they’ll need more than 4.
Lay the Run Line -1.5, -110 on the Friars. Maybe even the Alt line -2.5 if you’re feeling frisky.
