Colorado @ Atlanta preview
Truist Park
Last Meeting ( Sep 15, 2021 ) Colorado 3, Atlanta 2
The visiting Colorado Rockies will send German Marquez to the mound as they go for a three-game sweep of the Atlanta Braves on Thursday.
Marquez (12-10, 3.93 ERA) will face Atlanta's Ian Anderson (7-5, 3.61) in the final game of the series and between the two clubs this season.
The Rockies (68-78) improved to 5-1 on their current 10-game road trip with a 3-2 win in 10 innings over Atlanta on Wednesday. The Rockies have won six of their last seven road games.
The Rockies are 4-2 against the Braves this season and are 10-2 in Atlanta since the team moved to Truist Park in 2017.
The Braves (76-68) hold a 3 1/2-game lead over Philadelphia as they try to nail down their fourth straight NL East Division title. Atlanta is 23-28 in one-run games, the second-most such losses in the league.
Marquez, a first-time All-Star, will make his 30th start. He has struggled in his last six starts, posting a 6.23 ERA while allowing eight home runs. Prior to that stretch, he had pitched to a 1.94 ERA in his previous nine starts. In his last outing against Philadelphia on Sept. 10, he did not allow a run over six innings, his sixth scoreless appearance of the season, in an 11-2 win.
Marquez will make his fifth career start against the Braves, going 1-2 with a 6.65 ERA. He faced Atlanta on Sept. 4 and did not receive a decision when he pitched five innings and allowed four runs, two earned, on four hits, one walk and five strikeouts.
Marquez is also a threat to win the Silver Slugger Award, which he captured in 2018. He is hitting .245 with a homer, seven RBIs and a .633 OPS.
"It would be fun to win the Silver Slugger again," he said. "I love to hit. I love to get on base."
Anderson has won two of his three starts since returning from the injured list with shoulder soreness. In his last start on Sept. 10, Anderson got the win over Miami after he pitched five innings and allowed two runs, five hits and nine strikeouts. It was a striking comparison to his previous start, the first of his career against Colorado, on Sept. 4 when he was touched for four runs in three innings and did not receive a decision.
"It was so much better," Atlanta manager Brian Snitker said. "It's the polar opposite of what it was in Colorado. The look on his face, the stuff ... after the first inning he got settled in. That was a big outing for him. It's not easy to pitch in Colorado; it's tough for veteran guys. Everything worked out really good ... five really good innings to build on after that last start."
Atlanta's Jorge Soler and Adam Duvall each bring a 12-game hitting streak into the series finale. Soler singled in the third inning and Duvall singled in the eighth on Wednesday to match Dansby Swanson for the longest streak by a Brave this season.
--Field Level Media