Giants Vs Rockies: Paul DePodesta Guides Rockies Into 4th-Place Battle
giants vs rockies opens Friday at Coors Field with the Giants at 22-34 and the Rockies at 20-37, a division series that puts fourth place on the line in Denver. Both clubs arrive with losing records, but Colorado is carrying the heavier burden after another rough start in a run of seasons that has left it near the bottom of the NL West.
Coors Field Opens the Series
The first meeting at Coors Field this season comes with the Rockies trying to avoid another slide and the Giants trying to climb past them. Colorado has not had a winning season since 2018 and has lost 629 games over the previous 7 seasons, a stretch that has made every series inside the division carry extra weight.
Paul DePodesta now runs the Rockies’ baseball operation after being hired from outside the organization, with Josh Byrnes back in the club as general manager. That front office setup is part of the backdrop to this matchup, because Colorado is not just trying to survive the series — it is trying to show that a new structure can start producing better results than the recent record.
Rockies Lineup And Rotation
The numbers on the field explain why Colorado has been stuck where it is. The Rockies own the worst lineup in the sport with an 81 wRC+, the worst team ERA in the sport at 5.18, and a.241 team batting average that ranks 15th. They also have scored 229 runs, rank 21st in slugging impact with a.135 ISO, sit 29th in BB% at 7.6, and rank 28th in K% at 24.3.
There is one sharp contrast inside those numbers. Colorado and San Francisco are tied with 49 home runs, even though the Giants carry a better.245 batting average that ranks 10th. The Giants also enter May 29 at 9-16 for the month with a minus-28 run differential, while the Rockies are 6-19 with a minus-70 run differential, so neither side has been stable during the stretch that leads into this set.
Chase Dollander’s Early Spark
Chase Dollander offered one of the few encouraging notes for Colorado before he went on the injured list. The Rockies’ first-round pick in the 2023 draft gave them a strong contribution on the mound, and his absence leaves another gap for a team that is already operating with the sport’s weakest ERA.
That is the edge in this series: the Giants do not need a perfect road trip to make this meaningful, but a 22-34 team has a real chance to move ahead of a 20-37 division rival if it can take control at Coors Field. For Colorado, the assignment is more basic — stop the slide, use the home series to steady a season, and give DePodesta’s front office something better than another number in a long losing run.
