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San Francisco is ironically the perfect place for Rockies offense to get going

April 16, 2017

The San Francisco Giants are not known for having a hitter-friendly ballpark. In fact, quite the opposite. It is the visitors this weekend, the Colorado Rockies, who are known for putting up big offensive numbers at home while the boys by the bay typically succeed on the strength of their pitching.

Well, the Rockies have been a little slow to get going on offense in 2017, though they’ve been heating up in a place where offense usually goes to die. It’s odd in general, but for some reason, Colorado just likes hitting in San Fran.

In yesterday afternoon’s game, Nolan Arenado hit his 20th home run against the Giants and his ninth at AT&T Park. Only Matt Kemp (23) and Adrian Gonzalez (21) have hit more home runs against the Giants than Arenado, and both of those players have been in the league considerably longer. They now lead by three and one respectively.

Right behind them tied for fourth place are former Rockie Troy Tulowitzki and still-currently-not-yet-formerly-and-maybe-for-life Rockie Carlos Gonzalez who have each hit 19 home runs against the Giants.

Arenado has been especially good lately against his NL West division foe, hitting safely in 18 of his past 21 games at AT&T Park since April 14, 2015, batting .350 with nine homers and 24 RBI.

But it isn’t just the sluggers. DJ LeMahieu‘s career .327 batting average against San Francisco is the highest among active players. He has 87 hits in 266 at-bats.

Arenado is chasing former teammate Tulowitzki for the lead among active away players in home runs at AT&T Park, he needs just one more to tie him at 10.

Whenever Paul Goldschmidt is in the midst of one of his ridiculous stretches against the Rockies and broadcaster start talking about how he is a “Rockie Killer” is always feels a bit strange. Players that good tend to have good numbers against lots of teams. But still, the numbers bear that out and so do the ones contained in this article.

It’s easy to see why some call Nolan Arenado the Giant Killer.