Jake McCarthy has a seven-game hitting streak going in his breakout year playing for the Rockies. He's also got a great shot of hitting his 11th home run of the year today off of Miles Mikolas of the Nationals. Four games have passed since he last hit a home run at San Francisco, and I think Mikolas' poor Colorado history will help him find his power source (Carson Palmquist is the opener for Washington). McCarthy is a football player from Scranton who plays baseball, and Arizona gave up on him after 5 years only to watch him flourish in Colorado. He leads the Rockies with a .305 batting average. He's the number two player in the Rockies offense, and he's just reaching his potential.

I am never OK losing a bet, to be clear, but this game I'm playing in some ways for my pure enjoyment with two horrible starting pitchers in Miles Mikolas and Michael Lorenzen. But a F5 total of 7.5?! That's pretty massive; not sure if I have ever seen an 8, but I'm not checking F5 totals every day (maybe in one of those Vegas or Mexico City games). Each team could score one run in three of the first five innings tonight, and we still cash easy is the way I look at it. These are still big-league pitchers. But 5-4 after one inning also wouldn't shock me.