Rockies Take on Cubs at Wrigley Field

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We’re three weeks into the Major League Baseball season and the Colorado Rockies have been one of the best teams in baseball since opening day. The Rockies entered the week atop the NL West with a 14-7 record, leading the second place Los Angeles Dodgers by 3 games and the third place San Francisco Giants by 4 games. The Cubs started the week in 4th place in the NL Central, though with a 10-11 record that’s obviously more a function of the divisions overall mediocrity to this point than anything positive that Chicago is doing. The teams will conclude a three game series on Wednesday afternoon at Wrigley Field./blockquote>

The Rockies entered the season hoping to improve on a solid 2010 campaign facing the usual challenges of playing baseball at 5280 feet above sea level. Colorado finished with an 83-79 record, good for third in the NL West but knew that they’d have to do better on the road if they want to challenge for the postseason. As usual, the Rockies were strong at Coors Field posting a 52-29 mark that ranked among the MLB’s best. Away from home, however, they were just 31-50 which obviously isn’t good enough for a team looking to contend.

So far so good—at this stage of the game the Rockies actually have a better record on the road than they do at home. As of Monday, Colorado was 8-3 on the road and just 6-4 at Coors Field. It’s clear that their home performance will come around meaning that if they can sustain their excellent play on the road that they’ll be in contention throughout the year.

Colorado usually has a potent offense, but over the past decade has often struggled on the mound. Like their road performance, this area has also been a ‘so far so good’ situation. The Rockies entered the week with the #10 team ERA in baseball (3.64) and that’s despite a substandard effort so far from staff ace Ubaldo Jimenez.

The Rockies will start Jhoulys Chacin on Wednesday and he’s been in excellent form this season. Chacin is 3-1 with a 2.67 ERA and 18 strikeouts. He’ll face a Cubs team that entered the week 5-9 -5.4 units against right handed pitching. Chicago will be hard pressed to improve upon that record against Chacin—he’s a good one and could be in the Cy Young mix by the end of the season.

Chicago will counter with 23 year old Casey Coleman, who is a highly regarded prospect but hasn’t yet developed the command of his pitches necessary for Major League success. Coleman is 1-1 on the year with a brutal 7.43 ERA. The Rockies aren’t a great matchup for him either—Colorado entered the week 10-5 +3 units against right handed pitching.

This game may still present a good value on the road team, since there’s some thinking that Colorado isn’t for real. We think they are and that misread by the ‘public’ works nicely with their tendency to overvalue the Chicago Cubs at home. One of the more staggering numbers in baseball betting is the -140.1 units lost by the Cubs at Wrigley Field since 1997 despite being well above .500. We’ll back the Rockies here and look for their road success to continue.