Cubs can't afford slipup in series at Colorado

The Colorado Rockies just finished a three-game series with a team fighting for a wild-card berth and now face another when the Chicago Cubs come to town on Friday night.

Chicago will send Javier Assad (7-5, 3.14 ERA) to the mound while Colorado is expected to activate Austin Gomber (5-10, 4.50) from the paternity list to open the three-game series in Denver.

The Cubs (75-71) are five games behind the New York Mets for the third National League wild card and have no room for error with 16 games remaining. Chicago owns the majors' sixth-best record in the second half of the season, going 28-20 to join the pennant race.

The Cubs took two of three at Dodger Stadium earlier in the week but came away disappointed after Los Angeles captured the finale 10-8 on Wednesday.

That hasn't discouraged Chicago despite the team needing to jump over New York and the Atlanta Braves to get back to the postseason.

"We know that we've got to pile up some wins," Kyle Hendricks, who is slotted to pitch Sunday, said recently. "It's one day at a time, though. You can't win three games or four games in one day. So you come in every single day, and we know what our focus is. We know it's a short stretch here. So, yeah, just giving it everything we've got. We know if we play (up to) our potential ... anything can happen."

It starts with Assad, who is coming off a hard-luck loss against the New York Yankees on Saturday, when he permitted two runs (one earned) in 5 2/3 innings.

Assad has averaged six innings per start over his last four outings after struggling to go deep into games. He has faced the Rockies four times in his career (three starts), going 2-1 with a 4.70 ERA. Assad's first start of the year came against Colorado, and he fired six shutout innings in a victory on April 2.

The Rockies (55-92) have played well at home in recent months, winning 17 of their past 31 games in Denver. Colorado also has been giving winning teams trouble. The Rockies took two of three at Milwaukee last weekend and beat the Detroit Tigers 4-2 on Thursday to salvage the finale of a three-game series.

Gomber will try to give Colorado a boost in his first game since his wife, Rachel, gave birth to a baby girl this week. He is coming off one of his best starts of the season, when he held Atlanta to a run over eight innings in a win on Sept. 5.

He hasn't received much run support of late -- the Rockies have not scored more than three runs in any of his past six outings. In eight career appearances (three starts) against the Cubs, Gomber is 0-2 with a 6.62 ERA.

One area Colorado can improve is manufacturing runs instead of swinging for the fences. The Rockies did that Thursday when a single, a passed ball, a double, an groundout and a sacrifice fly in the ninth inning were the difference.

"Home runs are the most efficient way to score in this game," said Michael Toglia, who leads Colorado with 23. "That doesn't mean you need to be selling out for homers every time."

--Field Level Media