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Today we get another one of those terrific NL West sophomore pitching match-ups. Mat Latos has been somewhat erratic this season, while Chacin had been consistently good but not quite great up until his last start against the Dodgers on Friday where he took his pitching to another level. Today we'll see if he can continue to dominate against the Padres.
Meanwhile, for SABR fans, at his current rate, Chacin should pass the career 5.0 r-WAR mark in today's matchup, making him the fastest Rockies starting pitcher to ever reach that figure. He should hit the FanGraphs 5.0 WAR mark sometime later this month, again beating Ubaldo Jimenez for quickest to it at the start of a Rockies pitching career. Five career wins is a bit of a dividing line between an entrenched player and one that's on shaky MLB ground. To reach it this quickly actually suggests something more, however, and if Chacin can continue to perform at this level for the duration of the season, maybe we could actually start talking about what that is. At the very least, fluke or not, we could safely say that he's a legitimate #2 MLB starter at this point.
GO ROCKIES!!!!