Rockies-Phillies Series Grades: Clicking on all cylinders

Don’t look now, but the Colorado Rockies have been playing their best baseball of the year at the most crucial time.

As they smoked the Philadelphia Phillies in a four-game sweep, the Roxs was clicking on all cylinders, with the offense and pitching coming up big in a series they won by a cumulative score of 39-7.

When you whoop your opponent that badly, the grades are bound to be good, and as we do after each series, using our advanced statistics and our in-house all-encompassing metric DPR, we bring you our Rockies grades.

Note: The scores below are each player’s average DPR for the series. All Rockies stats and individual player profiles can be found here.

Nolan Arenado (76.96 — B+): With seven hits in the series Nolan was consistent throughout, with a batting average of .411 against the Phillies, adding two doubles, two runs, and two more RBIs. Other’s outshined him but Nolan came to play and made a huge impact just when the club needed him most.

Charlie Blackmon (66.42 — B-): Blackmon did his thing, contributing two extra-base hits, two more singles, a walk, and scoring four runs while only striking out twice. Three games with a negative WPA hurt him a bit but this was still a positive offensive series.

Trevor Story (87.04 — A): Boy, was it nice to have Story back.

After a couple ho-hum games the big shortstop closed the series off with a bang, posting back-to-back 100-plus DPRs as he went yard in back-to-back games. Story was straight up raking against the Phils, with five extra-base hits. A huge contribution from the Rockies most dynamic offensive weapon.

Trev is now leading the majors in home runs in the month of September, despite missing time and not being fully healthy.

DJ LeMahieu (73.64 — B): The hero of the Diamondbacks series, DJ kept hitting, with five hits in the first three games scoring five runs.

David Dahl (118.63 —⭐): Dahl was feeling it against Philly with four jacks in as many games and three of four games with DPRs over a 100. That’s insane production. As if that wasn’t enough, he had eight hits in the series and scored six runs with a crazy 11 RBI.

Dahl is now fourth in the MLB with 23 RBI in the month of September, off of only 72 ABs, fewer than anyone in the top 10. He’s become the offensive X-factor going into the final stretch.

Carlos Gonzalez (77.00 — B+): CarGo was swinging a sweet bat in the three games of action he got, with a double in each outing and four RBI.

Ian Desmond (73.40 — B): Stop me if you’ve heard this already; Desi was incredibly consistent in the series, batting .312 with a homer and a double, scoring four runs.

Gerardo Parra (95.76 —⭐): Parra’s series-defining moment was a massive pinch-hit homer in game four, but it shouldn’t be forgotten that he had a pretty special game one: three hits, a walk, two RBI, and two runs. This was a clutch performance from the veteran outfielder.

Garrett Hampson (51.35 — C-): Two ABs in the series saw Hampson get an RBI double in game one. Even if he didn’t do anything in game three, he was still a valuable contributor.

Ryan McMahon (40.84 — D):  Appearing in three games with an AB in each, McMahon managed a single he scored on but also struck out once, going 1-for-3 in the series.

Pat Valaika (69.79 — B-): Valaika was another unsung hero with a pinch-hit RBI double that he eventually scored on, as Colorado’s offense piled on the Phillies in game three.

Ramiel Tapia (53.75 — C-): Tapia was another valuable contributor with a pinch-hit RBI triple in game three. His grade was lowered by his other AB in the series.

Chris Iannetta (58.70 — C): Iannetta had a strong game two with a single and a walk, both of which he scored on. He wasn’t as impactful in game four, despite getting another hit, as he struck out twice.

Tony Wolters (87.33 — A): Wolters was seeing the ball like a hawk against Philly, walking six times in two games, he added two RBI and a run as well.

Drew Butera (91.80 — A+): Butera wasn’t going to be left out, as he too had a two-RBI jack in game three on his one AB of the entire series.

Jon Gray (80.88 — A): Gray came up big in seven innings of one-run ball, allowing only four hits while striking out seven. His game score and WPA were very high in his best start since August 5th.

Chad Bettis (63.61 — C+): In a spot start, Bettis went only 2.2 innings allowing a run off of three hits.

German Marquez (97.76 —⭐): Marquez was ridiculous by any statistical measure in his historical start.

Here are a few highlights: he pitched seven innings, struck out the first eight and 11 overall, allowed three hits, walked one, forced 10 ground ball outs to only two fly balls, and posted a FIP of 0.45. That’s inhuman.

To put things into perspective, in the last two months Marquez’s DPR average of 83.82 would be second to only Jacob DeGrom this season. A special, special talent.

Antonio Senzatela (55.37 — C): Senza went 4.2 innings in game four, allowing one run off a solo homer. The rest of his stats weren’t pretty but he ate up enough innings for Colorado to pull off the sweep.

Wade Davis (80.72 — A-): Davis was only utilized in game four getting his 42nd save of the year with two Ks after conceding a single to the first batter he faced.

Adam Ottavino (7.40 — F): Otto made things tight in the final game by giving up a two-run jack to start off the inning, which killed his grade. Thing is, after that, he was his usual dominant self, getting out of trouble with three Ks.

Seunghwan Oh (88.94 —A): Oh appeared in the final two games and pitched two shutout innings with four strikeouts and identical FIPs of -0.84.

Scott Oberg (91.41 —A+): Oberg came up huge with two outings in which he was asked to get nine outs. He allowed one hit while he striking out five and forced five more groundball outs for ridiculous FIPs of 0.75 and -1.35.

Chris Rusin (80.60 —A-): Rusin had to pitch two innings in game two and was terrific despite allowing two hits. Three Ks and three groundball outs did the trick as he exited unscathed when his club needed him most.

Jake McGee (-27.24 —F): McGee struggled in game two, managing to get only one out as he walked one and allowed two runs off of as many hits.

Yency Almonte (25.79 —F): Almonte had a rough time in game two in 0.1 innings of work, as he allowed two hits and a walk. Sure, he didn’t concede any runs but this was far from a clean outing.

Bryan Shaw (62.05 — C+): Shaw was far from perfect in two innings of work, walking one in each appearance, but he did the job with two scoreless outings, with a K in each and three groundball outs.

Harrison Musgrave (76.59 —B+): Musgrave was big in the first two games, contributing 1.2 innings in the series while striking out two.