The Mariners are heading to Colorado this weekend to face the Rockies, and it comes at a point when Seattle is mostly just finishing the schedule. That makes the series more useful as a look at where Colorado stands than as a race-changing matchup.
For the Rockies, the timing matters because they are trying to show that last year’s 119-loss collapse was not the end of the story. They are on track for a 16-win improvement, and their team wOBA of.325 is their best since 2019, a small but real sign that the lineup has moved forward from the six-year stretch when Colorado sat at.308 and ranked 21st in baseball.
That progress is tied to a handful of young and recently productive bats. Hunter Goodman had a breakout season last year, TJ Rumfield has broken out this year, and Cole Carrigg and Kyle Karros have shown plenty of promise. Paul DePodesta was brought in after last season to lead the baseball operations department, and the Rockies clearly want the numbers to keep moving in the right direction after years of rebuilding.
The pitching side is still less settled. The Rockies did not have a starter listed for Friday’s game at the time of publication, which leaves open the simplest question in the series preview: who actually gets the ball first? Ryan Feltner is one possibility, but his role is still the one that needs defining after he threw five shutout innings in relief of Kyle Freeland against the Padres on Tuesday. Feltner also finished 2024 with a 4.49 ERA and a 4.16 FIP in 30 starts, so there is a real case for using him in more than one way if Colorado wants to manage the game carefully.
Gabriel Hughes is another arm in the conversation, though his profile points to a different kind of risk. He made his debut in July and has a 6.37 ERA this season, but his park-adjusted FIP of 92 is better than league average, a reminder that raw results at Coors Field can be a bad guide by themselves. His fastball also does not fade arm-side the way most four-seams do, which gives Colorado a more unusual look even if the club still has not settled on a Friday answer.
That is the shape of this series: a Mariners team playing out the string, a Rockies club trying to prove the rebuild is turning, and a home park that tends to turn ordinary offense into something louder. Colorado can point to better numbers and a more promising young core, but until Friday’s starter is named, the team is still asking the same question it has asked for years — how to turn signs of progress into something that lasts.
