MLB Picks

Dbacks vs. Rockies Predictions, Picks & Best Bets: Sat, 4/29

by
Jonathan Moreland
April 29, 2023

At TSP, we like to do the work so you can do the winning. We hope that’s the case tonight, as we’ve found some major betting value in the Saturday night showdown between the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies at Coors Field in Denver.

Below are our Dbacks vs. Rockies predictions, picks and best bets for Saturday, April 29, 2023. Projections are powered by the great folks at Ballpark Pal, while odds are provided by our friends at DraftKings Sportsbook.

If you’re not yet a DraftKings member, claim a “Bet $5, Win $150” bonus by clicking here, creating an account and wagering on any pre-game money line. (SPOILER: We have a money line bet among our Diamondbacks vs. Rockies predictions below.)

Let’s get into it.

Diamondbacks vs. Rockies Predictions & Picks: Saturday, April 29, 2023

A month into the 2023 MLB season, the Diamondbacks have been as surprising as the Rockies have been sorry.

Arizona has hacked together a 15-12 record in 2023’s opening stanza. Their +6 overall run differential implies this record isn’t wholly a fluke. Whether or not the Dbacks can sustain their winning ways in the wild NL West is another question.

Colorado didn’t have high expectations entering the season, but they had to have been higher than stumbling to an 8-19 record out of the gate. Most notably, the Rockies traditionally have strong home/road splits, but are just 3-8 at Coors Field. Their offense has mustered just a 77 wRC+, 4th-worst in MLB, despite playing in the most extreme hitter-friendly environment in baseball.

Let’s look at the projections for tonight’s tilt.

Arizona LHP Tommy Henry has been terrible through the first 51.1 IP of his MLB career. The 25-year-old has a 5.44 ERA (6.11 FIP) and 1.48 WHIP over 10 starts. His career 6.49 K/9, 4.38 BB/9 and 1.93 HR/9 is the holy trifecta of the bad, basic peripherals we like to attack when picking on a pitcher.

Colorado counters with its own relatively unheralded rotation piece in RHP Noah Davis. The 26-year-old has a deep repertoire of mostly average pitches. His saving grace will be his sinker, which he has thrown 42.9% of the time over his first 10.2 IP in the Big Leagues. Davis induces grounders at a 64.5% rate, which will serve him well at Coors. Thin air and a big outfield don’t matter if a ball’s hit on the ground.

It doesn’t matter if the ball’s not put in play, either. While he didn’t miss a lot of bats in the minors, Davis racked up 5 Ks in 5 IP or less in each of his first two starts this season. This isn’t a great spot, and Davis isn’t supposed to be a star, but he is the superior starter this evening.

Combine the SP matchup with Ballpark Pal’s simulations, and there are two spots with significant betting value that we like.

The first bet we see value in is the money line. The game is priced as a near pick’em, but Colorado is projected to win almost 57% of the time in this spot. We alluded to it above, but we like Colorado’s starter far more than the visitor’s.

While the Rox have hardly rocked n rolled from an offensive standpoint, this is a team that had the #1 overall offense against LHPs at Home in 2022. Their 185 total runs scored and collective .379 wOBA are the stuff you’d expect to see in a video game. While this ain’t 2022 anymore, southpaw-smashers CJ Cron, Randal Grichuk and Kris Bryant still anchor what’s largely the same lineup overall.

Simulations also suggest the expected game total should be closer to 10 than the 12.5 runs it’s currently listed at across the industry. That’s a big gap.

Colorado’s staff has stumbled to a 6.55 ERA at Home thus far, but their 5.28 FIP and 4.89 xFIP suggest that we should expect some positive regression.

At the end of the day, these are professional athletes. It’s hard to score runs. It’s even harder to score 13+ runs in a single game, regardless of how putrid the pitching is that day. And in this case, we don’t expect Colorado’s pitching to be that pitiful.

We’re going to buy low on the Rockies and try to exploit all this betting value. Leaning into the projections and analysis above, here are our Diamondbacks vs. Rockies predictions, picks and best bets for tonight.