been drunk and/or traveling the last few days so I have not been around. Should be here and will try not to miss any days going forward, but not posting has gone well with two very surprising road wins from SEA the last two...
Current line:
05/31 22:10 ET Seattle -172 vs. Colorado: Paxton vs. Senzatela
Paxton is a stud and is very scary to be against here, but my current lean is to COL. Think they win a bullpen game and while Senzatela has been struggling lately, I think he is worth a stab with Paxton coming off the DL having only thrown 55 pitches in his lone rehab start.
Paxton is the future, so we have to assume Servais will be out of a job if he screws up his arm further. He enters with a forearm injury, which sounds like something that could lead to a UCL tear so I can't imagine he goes more than 90 tonight. Even if he does, I like the COL lineup's chances to score on him as it's been 29 days since he threw a pitch in the bigs.
His bullpen AKA Edwin Diaz got some much needed rest yesterday when SEA erupted in the 9th to extend a four-run lead, but at least he got up and warmed. On top of this, pretty much every SEA arm used yesterday worked Monday's game as well besides Lawrence. He's a long reliever/spot-starter, so he shouldn't really have much of an effect on tonight's game unless Paxton leaves early or this hits extras late. Both of those scenarios fit my theory that COL is worth a bet tonight.
On the other side is Senzatela, who is coming off his best start of the year tossing eight shutout innings vs StL. The SEA lineup has more power than that one, but the venue is far better for a pitcher here and StL has a much longer lineup. I presume we see Cruz tonight, but his absence would make the lineup Cano and that's about it. Senzatela's thrown six QS out of 10 chances, but two of his last three have not qualified. COL is 8-2 in his starts this year, including blowing a huge lead @CIN, so he's been a huge part of their success this year.
Black should have all his top guns available in the bullpen as only Oberg worked both games, and I wouldn't consider him one of them. Dunn used to be, but fell out of favor (a lot because of the aforementioned blown game @CIN).
So to summarize, I prefer the COL bullpen by a landslide and they are far more rested. No Cruz will probably see this line fall about $0.15, but all reports sound like he'll be in the lineup tonight. That may give us a bit of a jump as well, but regardless of that I don't expect anybody to be missing from the COL lineup after losing the first two of this odd series and, in turn, losing their NL West lead.
Will be back with my COL YTD record and when I lock in...