Rangers Set To Face Off With Unorthodox Rockies Rotation

If you need any motivation beyond the idea of just spending a relaxing night at the Ballpark to go take in one of the Texas Rangers’ match-ups with the Colorado Rockies this weekend--and the discerning fan might, since the Rockies are 26-42 at the moment, 4th in the National League West and without their only legit star, Troy Tulowitzki, who is out after undergoing groin surgery--at least you can see something from Colorado that you won’t see from any other team in baseball.

Rockies’ manager Jim Tracy announced this week that the Rockies would go to a four-man rotation with a 75-pitch limit, a pretty much unheard of set-up for a Major League rotation.

Christian Friedrich will work within this limit in tonight’s series opener in Arlington against Roy Oswalt, who will be making his Rangers’ debut. Josh Outman will go against Colby Lewis on Saturday, and Alex White will face off with Matt Harrison in the series finale Sunday.

As of now, Texas is hitting .261 for the month of June. But with a Rockies’ team that comes to town with a 5.33 ERA, an overworked bullpen and a strangely restrictive approach to pitching, now would seem a pretty good time to bump that number up somewhere closer to their league-leading .281 team average for the year--and maybe extend that AL West lead.

While Texas plays out a set with Colorado, the second place Angels are set to face the NL West-leading LA Dodgers.