Giants-Rockies Series Kicks Off at Coors for 4th

Giants-Rockies series – With the Rockies struggling for years and the Giants hovering nearby, the three-game series at Coors Field turns into a fight over “not last” in the NL West. First pitch times are set for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, with Logan Webb facing Michael Lorenzen, a

Friday night at Coors Field comes with a simple question hanging over the stands: how far can the Giants climb—and how badly can the Rockies fall without fully going under?

San Francisco arrives for the first of three games at 22-34. opening the series against a Colorado team that sits at 20-37. The Rockies have lost 629 games over the previous 7 seasons and haven’t posted a winning season since 2018. This year’s record isn’t pretty—20-37 still isn’t—and yet it’s also a clear step up from where they were a year ago.

Colorado and San Francisco are tied at 49 home runs. But the Rockies have been fighting uphill in almost every other way: they are tied for the worst team offense indicators. including a team batting average of .241 that ranks 15th. and a lineup that doesn’t generate power or patience. Their ISO is .135 (24th), their BB% is 7.6 (29th), and they strike out a lot—K% at 24.3 (28th). On the pitching side, their team ERA is the worst in the sport at 5.18.

Still, the gap between these two teams isn’t as wide as the standings might suggest. The Giants are 9-16 with a -28 run differential. The Rockies are 6-19 in May with a -70 run differential—bad. but also not a gulf you can drive a team through and never come out the other side. The matchup now feels less like “two worlds apart” and more like a series where one mistake can swing a game. and one good stretch can buy a little distance from the basement.

The Rockies’ season has had its own kind of chaos. and the front-office rebuild is now tied to a man who once changed the way baseball talked about spreadsheets. Paul DePodesta became the Dodgers’ GM in 2004 at age 31. was called “Google Boy” by musty old LA Times sportwriters. and was also mocked by local LA media when one local radio host coined “Paul Stupid-desta.” He later landed with the Padres and the Mets before leaving MLB altogether. In January 2016. he became the Cleveland Browns’ “chief strategy officer” and spent 9 years further burying the franchise while introducing the NFL to SQL—now. his job is to build the Rockies’ operation from the outside in.

DePodesta isn’t working alone. Josh Byrnes is back in the organization as GM—he’d been their AGM at the turn of the century after stints with the Red Sox, Diamondbacks, Padres, and Dodgers—and both roles point to a full organizational reset rather than one or two splashy moves.

The current on-field picture shows it in fragments, including the offseason additions. INF Willi Castro. on a 2-year deal worth $12.8 million. has a 77 wRC+ at the plate but has been strong defensively with +1.8 Defensive Runs Above Average. SP Michael Lorenzen is listed at 1/$8MM and has been among the worst starters overall this season with a 7.21 ERA and a 5.13 FIP—but he also carries a comically lopsided split that could swing one game in a hurry. His home ERA is 10.03 with a 2.44 WHIP, while his road ERA is 5.04 with a 1.48 WHIP.

RHP Tomoyuki Sugano—1/$5.1MM—has been the most consistent starter, with a 4.01 ERA and a 5.33 FIP in 11 starts.

In the middle of the lineup, 1B TJ Rumfield was acquired in a trade with the Yankees and has 7 home runs with a .281/.359/.448 triple slash. But his production has come with more fragility: before he hit the IL, he was being a bright spot, and after a hit by pitch on May 25th, he became day to day.

On the pitching and bullpen side, the Rockies’ current story is being written around availability. Their formal closer, Victor Vodnik, has been on the IL since 5/20 with right ulnar nerve inflammation. Before the injuries tightened the map, Chase Dollander—who has also relieved—was on the IL. Even if Colorado didn’t have a great bullpen before, the current version is visibly dinged up.

Chase Dollander’s absence matters because, before he hit the IL, he had been part of the modest bounceback. Aside from that. the “improvement” Colorado points to seems driven more by tinkering at the margins—DePodesta and Byrnes assessing the organization as a whole—than by a single miracle addition. It’s not unlike how 2019 played out for the Giants’ rival ecosystem. when Farhan Zaidi took over from Bobby Evans in a transition season.

And now the series turns into a test for what DePodesta’s changes can actually produce against a nearby opponent.

The starting matchups are set for:

Friday: Logan Webb (RHP 2-4, 5.06 ERA) vs. Michael Lorenzen (RHP 2-7, 7.21 ERA) at Coors Field.

Saturday: Adrian Houser (RHP 2-4, 5.30 ERA) vs. TBDS.

Sunday: Robbie Ray (LHP 3-6, 4.60 ERA) vs. Tanner Gordon (RHP 0-0, 5.85 ERA).

Game times are Friday at 5:40pm PT, Saturday at 6:10pm PT, and Sunday at 12:10pm PT. National broadcasts are listed as none.

This is also a series where familiar names show up in Coors Field numbers. and where the Rockies’ bullpen usefulness may be easier to believe than their lineup power. Antonio Senzatela has been a foil for the Giants throughout his career (5-3. 4.89 ERA). but this season he has transitioned from an iffy starter to a dominant reliever. In 33 IP across 16 games, he has a 1.36 ERA and a 3.19 FIP, allowing just 2 home runs; his career rate is 1.1 HR/9.

There’s reason to be skeptical, too. Senzatela is running a .198 BABIP, an 87.8% strand rate, and a 5.4% HR/FB rate—numbers that read like bright regression signals. Yet his FIP is 3.19 and his xERA is 3.09. Those are really good for a multi-inning reliever. and they’re also about half of what he ran last year. suggesting something has changed rather than just luck stacking up.

The Rockies have used him in specific ways. He has faced at least four batters in all 16 appearances, recorded five or more outs in 14 of them, has not pitched on back-to-back days, and has turned over the lineup more often—five times—than he’s pitched on just one day’s rest.

The weapons look real on paper as well. The scouting description points to him throwing a fastball mix: a four-seamer, a sinker, and a cutter. Opponents have hit just .143 against that approach.

Where the series could get tight is in what the bullpen forces on each side. Colorado’s role shuffling has been weird this season—pre-injury Chase Dollander’s stint as the world’s greatest bulk reliever is one example—and Senzatela’s usage fits that same willingness to treat innings differently. When the Rockies are this vulnerable offensively, those small pitching decisions become everything.

At the plate, the Giants don’t arrive empty-handed. Rafael Devers has 3 homers in 8 career games at Coors, with a .229/.315/.454 triple slash at the venue. His 0-for-4 in Wednesday’s game didn’t damage his hot May too much: he is at .287/.333/.564. a .897 OPS through the first 25 games of the month. Jung Hoo Lee is set to be activated off the IL today. His career .911 OPS against Colorado is already strong. but at Coors Field he’s hitting .357/.455/.539 (.990) in 33 PA—small sample. but the numbers are loud.

For the home team, TJ Rumfield’s May impact depends on whether he’s physically ready, and Hunter Goodman remains the most reliable power threat with 12 HR. Mickey Moniak is on the IL, and Rumfield’s recent form has been paused by that hit by pitch on May 25th.

Tanner Gordon’s background adds another wrinkle. His third major league start ever came back in 2024 against a barely recognizable Giants lineup featuring Jorge Soler. Mike Yastrzemski. Heliot Ramos. Michael Conforto. Tyler Fitzgerald. Matt Chapman. Brett Wisely. David Villar. Curt Casali. and SP Hayden Birdsong. In that start, he gave up 4 runs in 6 innings, struck out 5, and walked 0. Last season, he started 15 games for the Rockies and it didn’t go well with a 6.33 ERA. His first 7 appearances this year were in relief. and his last appearance was against the Dodgers in LA. where he allowed just 1 run on 6 hits in 5 innings. striking out 3 and walking 1.

For the Giants, Webb is returning to a place that has tested pitchers. Coors can turn calm innings into long ones. Webb has a 4.37 ERA in 10 career starts at Coors. The Rockies’ team groundball rate is 42%. ranking 14th in MLB. which means Webb might not always get the groundballs he needs for shorter frames. At the same time. their flyball rate is 37.1%—24th in the sport—and their HR to flyball rate of 9.5% is near the bottom third (19th). If Webb is right, the matchup could tilt toward a solid start.

In the dugout, the Rockies’ manager Warren Schaeffer shows up as a link between past and present. A Rockies farmhand turned coach. he wound up on the major league coaching staff in 2023 before taking over as interim manager from the deposed Bud Black. The story around the club this season has often leaned on the idea that younger. less established managers sometimes carry an “aura” simply by being closer to the day-to-day of the big leagues.

Last meeting, there was already frustration on the Giants’ side. The previewer who laid out earlier thoughts admits he predicted the Giants would not get swept by the Diamondbacks. but that didn’t happen; “what an embarrassment” is how the frustration was captured. including the belief that the Giants could win 1 game at home against a division rival.

This time the prediction is sharper and more focused: the guess is that the Giants will hit at least 5 home runs in this series.

The bigger truth underneath it is simpler. The Rockies have spent so long near the bottom that it has started to feel permanent. But with the Giants close enough to make the “last place” chair reachable. the Rockies are no longer just surviving their season—they’re defending it. And at Coors Field, defending anything in a lineup this volatile can turn into a long evening fast.

Giants Rockies Coors Field Paul DePodesta Josh Byrnes Logan Webb Michael Lorenzen Antonio Senzatela NL West 4th place