Game #72 Preview: 6/25, Arizona Diamondbacks @ Colorado Rockies

Rubby De La Rosa RHP, 6-3, 4.96

Jorge De La Rosa LHP, 4-3, 5.47

Nick Ahmed - SS	Charlie Blackmon - CF
A.J. Pollock - CF	Rafael Ynoa - 2B
Paul Goldschmidt - 1B	Nolan Arenado - 3B
Yasmany Tomas - RF	Ben Paulsen - LF
Aaron Hill - 3B	Wilin Rosario - 1B
Welington Castillo - C	Mike McKenry - C
Chris Owings - 2B	Daniel Descalso - SS
David Peralta - LF	Brandon Barnes - RF
Rubby De La Rosa - RHP	Jorge De La Rosa - LHP

And we were so close, dammit, to breaking out of the apparently endless cycle last night. Three outs away from finally losing two games in a row! But, of course, the (Colorado) bullpen had to blow it, coughing up a ninth-inning lead, and so we find ourselves right back where we started again, circling the event horizon of 1.5 games below .500, like some random astronomical object that casually wandered in too close, and fell into the gravity well. Will ever experience any kind of streak ever again? Right now, it feels like we are doomed to alternate wins and losses for the rest of eternity.

I've given up feeling optimistic in this scenario. In fact, I've given up feel much beyond a vague sort of slightly-irritating numbness, not dissimilar to "Hang on, didn't we have pasta yesterday, too?" But if we couldn't beat the worst team in our division, with our best pitcher on the mound and going up against a man whom even their own fans are desperate to trade, what chance today? Cool though it is to be part of what has to be - not that I've checked - the first War of the Roses [or Red Wedding?] in baseball history. And it's not the first time we've had both starters with the same surname this season, as we enjoyed the Battle of the Andersons against Los Angeles in April.

The good news is, we do have decent numbers against De La Rosa (their one). We faced him four times last season, and he went 0-3 with a 5.40 ERA: our current roster has a solid .289/.314/.506 line against him. Meanwhile, I was surprised to discover that De La Rosa (our one) has faced the Rockies twice before, but then, I keep forgetting he used to be a Dodger. That was back in 2011, but fortunately for the paragraph above, which I just lovingly polished, he did not meet De La Rosa (their one) in either contest. He did, however, win both times, but as I said, that was back in 2011, and hard to draw any meaningful conclusions from that.

So, win. Or don't. Whatever.