Two Out of Three Ain't Bad

I'm never going to complain about a 7-3 road trip.  The longest trip of the year started with the Rockies holding a 1.5 game lead over the Dodgers and they return with a 1 game lead over Arizona who went 9-1 during the same stretch, while LA was 6-4.  Arizona had 6 games at home and LA 7.   The D-Backs started an 11 game road trip last night, while the Dodgers start a 7-gamer on Monday.  Both teams however are two games under on the road while the Rockies have an 18-8 record.

I wouldn't be surprised to see the Rockies lose the NL West lead over the next 5 weeks, but the key is to worry about your games, and let the other teams worry about theirs--and stay close. The NL West seems to be the strongest division so far, with the top three teams having the 1st, 2nd, and 4th best records in the National League.  And the national press seems to think both the Rockies and D-Backs will fall soon.

This is why I look at the Home/Road Factor as a guage of where the teams stand.  The Rockies have played fewer games at home and have a +8 factor at the moment, while the D-Backs are only +1, and Dodgers are +2.  Keep in mind that a +9 will project you to a 90 win season, which will usually get you to the playoffs. This means that the Rockies have to win only one game more than they have home games to get to the playoffs, while the D-Backs and Dodgers will have to win 8 or 7 respectively, and they have fewer home games to play.

If the Rockies can improve their record at home (although they only have 7 home games in the next three weeks and 14 in the next 5.5 weeks through July 2nd) they can make their Road Record more reasonable.  So in their next 35 games they need 14 wins to stay on target. Any better than that and they will stretch their Home/Road Factor Further.  And oh, yeah 9 of the last 12 games of that stretch are against the Dodgers and D-Backs, so they have a chance to help themselves in head to head matches.   The great start has helped them take some of the pressure off, unlike 2009, when they started off 20-32 and had to go 70-40 the rest of the way to get to 90 (and they won 92).

Even if you look at where they are now at 31-18 overall, playing .500 ball the rest of the way would put them at an 87-88 win range.   They will have their down periods, but as long as they don't go into too deep of a hole, they have given themselves some cushion in getting back out.

Scheduling Quirks:  Teams now have seven four game series outside of their division including one that is a home and home series against the other league.  The Rockies have already played three at Milwaukee and Philadelphia and home against Washington.  They will play their AL Home/Home series next week, leaving them only three more four gamers against the East and Central, and two of those (at Chicago and vs. Cincinnati) happen before the All Star game.  That leaves the Braves at Coors in August as their lone 4 gamer after the break.  In the West they usually have one 4 game series against each team, but this year, they have 2 against the Dodgers and Giants (along with two 2 game series  for some reason.)  Three of those will happen in September, all on the road.