Colorado Rockies game no. 83 thread: Johan Oviedo vs Chi Chi González

The Colorado Rockies and their fans welcomed back Nolan Arenado to Coors Field with a raucous 5-2 victory yesterday. Now that the emotional homecoming has passed, they’ll try to take their second game of the series on Friday.

Right-hander Johan Oviedo (0-4, 5.23 ERA) will toe the rubber for St. Louis looking to secure his first victory of the season. Oviedo, a highly-touted prospect of the Cardinals organization, made his MLB debut in the shortened 2020 season, going 0-3 with a 5.47 ERA. This season’s on essentially the same path, as his ERA+, FIP, WHIP, H/9, and HR/9 are all eerily similar to a year ago. His strikeout and walk numbers are up, which would seem to indicate that he has decent stuff but is having difficulty placing it. Oviedo’s repertoire appears to be fairly standard - FB, SL, CB, CH - so it’ll be interesting to see how he’ll do in his Coors Field debut.

Chi Chi González (2-5, 5.81 ERA) had a solid outing his last time on the hill this past Sunday against Milwaukee, going five innings and allowing just one run on three hits with two walks and four strikeouts, the lone run coming by way of a Keston Hiura solo homer. The Rockies dropped that game 5-0, but González did a nice job of keeping the Brewers offense in check. He’ll try to do similar work against the Cardinals, though he’ll have to be wary as Chi Chi owns a 6.81 ERA at Coors this season.

Someone to keep an eye on will be Elías Díaz. as the Rockies catcher has been absolutely scorching of late. Despite hitting below .200 on the 2021 campaign, Díaz has hit three homers in as many games, including Thursday’s walk-off winner. He may get a rest on Friday, but if not look for him to stay hot. Raimel Tapia had the day off yesterday, so he’ll likely be back in the lineup.

The Cardinals offense has some decent numbers against González, as Harrison Bader and Tommy Edman are both 2-for-6 while Paul Goldschmidt is 3-for-8 with a homer. Nolan Arenado is 0-fer in two at-bats. As mentioned before, the Rockies have never faced Johan Oviedo, so we’ll see how quickly they can figure him out.

Start Time: 6:10 p.m. MDT

TV: AT&T SportsNet, MLB.TV

Radio: KOA 850 AM/94.1 FM; KNRV 1150 (Spanish)

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