The Blue Jays travel to Denver this week to play three interleague games against the Colorado Rockies. The Blue Jays have lost five of their last seven and are five games back of first place in the American League East.
Monday, June 27 — 8:40 pm EST
Marco Estrada vs. Jon Gray
Tuesday, June 28 — 8:40 pm EST
J.A. Happ vs. Eddie Butler
Wednesday, June 29 — 3:10 pm EST
Aaron Sanchez vs. Tyler Anderson
Tulowitzki Returns
This series will mark Troy Tulowitzki’s return to Coors Field after he was sent to the Blue Jays at the trade deadline last July.
Tulowitzki enjoyed the best success of his career as a Rockie, including his five all-star seasons and the stretch from 2009 through 2011 when he was a perennial MVP candidate. But the 31-year-old’s departure from Denver was rocky to say the least.
Asked last week if he was looking forward to returning to Colorado, Tulowitzki expressed mixed feelings.
“I’m looking forward to seeing the fans. Obviously I played there for a very long time. So, that’ll be cool. And some coaches. I have some good friends there,” Tulowitzki said. “But with all the other stuff? No, not really. And that’s not saying anything bad about the organization. It’s just one of those things where it’s going to make for a long three days for me. But I’ll try to enjoy it. And hopefully, more importantly, we can just win some games there.”
Coors Field
With its high altitude and low air density, Coors Field is renowned for being one of the most home run friendly ballparks in all of baseball. The park is situated 1,580 metres above sea level, which eclipses the next-closest MLB park—Chase Field in Phoenix—by more than 1,200 metres. Last season there were 202 homers hit at Coors Field, the most of any National League ballpark, and the highest of any outside the powerful American League East.
So, there are going to be some homers. But keep an eye on how the elements affect the first two Blue Jays starters in this series, Marco Estrada and J.A. Happ. Both pitchers have relied on fly balls to get the majority of their outs in their careers, especially Estrada whose 49.8 percent fly ball rate is the highest of any major league starter this season. Considering the atmospheric effects at Coors, some of those long fly balls could easily turn into home runs.
It’s also worth watching Aaron Sanchez in the final game of the series. Coors Field is said to have an adverse effect on curveballs, causing them to move less. That could be a challenge for Sanchez, who has used his curveball to great success this season.
Pitcher unfamiliarity
The Blue Jays will be facing three Rockies starters—Jon Gray, Eddie Butler and Tyler Anderson—that they have never faced before. The only Blue Jay with any experience against a Colorado starter is Darwin Barney, who has two plate appearances against Butler. That’s it.
This puts an added impetus on the Blue Jays advance scouts, coaching staff, and hitters to do their homework ahead of this series and log extra hours in the video room learning the tendencies of the Rockies starters. But even that could be tricky as the three young pitchers are incredibly inexperienced themselves, with a combined 51 starts between them.
Colorado’s dangerous offence
While the Blue Jays are renowned for their powerful offence, Colorado could be able to hang with them.
The Blue Jays have three players with slugging percentages over .500; the Rockies have five. Part of that is obviously due to Coors Field, but there’s reason to believe the Rockies could have that kind of success no matter where they hit.
The Rockies generally hit the ball very hard, with 32.9 percent of their balls in play being classified as hard-hit by FanGraphs, which is the ninth-best rate in the MLB.
Colorado is also one of the best clubs in the majors at getting on base, with a .336 on-base percentage as a team (fourth-best in the MLB), which helps ensure many those hard extra-base hits drive in runs.
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