The team with the best record in baseball hosts the team with the worst on Friday afternoon, when the Milwaukee Brewers open a three-game series against the Colorado Rockies at American Family Field.
Milwaukee enters at 64-38, atop the National League Central and a half-game behind the Los Angeles Dodgers for the best record in the majors. Colorado arrives at 41-63, last in the NL West and last in baseball.
First pitch is 4:10 p.m. ET — 3:10 p.m. local — an unusual Friday afternoon slot scheduled as part of the ballpark's 25th anniversary celebration rather than the standard evening series opener.
The pitching matchup
Colorado hands the ball to right-hander Tomoyuki Sugano, who is 9-4 with a 4.76 ERA, a 1.29 WHIP and 51 strikeouts. The win total is the outlier on a team this far under .500, and it is the reason he has been the most watchable thing about the Rockies' season.
Milwaukee counters with left-hander Shane Drohan, 5-3 with a 3.20 ERA, a 1.18 WHIP and 76 strikeouts. The strikeout gap is the number to sit with: Drohan has punched out 25 more hitters than Sugano despite the shorter record, which points to the difference in how the two get outs.
Form going in
Milwaukee has won five of six since the All-Star break, which is roughly the pace it has kept all season. Colorado has lost two of three to both the Cincinnati Reds and the Washington Nationals in the same stretch.
The betting market has priced the mismatch accordingly: the Brewers opened at -258, the Rockies at +205, with a total of 8.5 runs. That is a steep number for a single regular-season game, and it reflects both the records and the pitching edge.
Why the Rockies are worth watching anyway
A 41-63 team in late July is playing for next year, and that is its own kind of interesting. Colorado is a franchise built around a ballpark that distorts everything about how its pitchers are evaluated, which makes a road start like this one — at sea level, against the best lineup in the league — a cleaner read on what Sugano actually is.
For Milwaukee, the stakes are simpler. The Brewers are in a two-team race with the Dodgers for the best record in baseball and the postseason seeding that comes with it, and a home series against the worst team in the league is exactly the kind of stretch a contender is expected to bank.
How to watch
The game is on regional broadcast in both markets, with out-of-market coverage through MLB.TV subject to blackout rules. The live scoreboard above updates on its own once first pitch arrives, and freezes on the final.
