Colorado at Chicago

Colorado is 58-103, the worst record in baseball, and Chicago is 83-78 and headed to the postseason. That gap accounts for the whole price. It stopped mattering to the White Sox yesterday, when a 9-6 loss to these Rockies and Cleveland's clinch locked them into the AL's sixth seed, with a Wild Card Series starting Tuesday. A team two days from a playoff game has every reason to protect its regulars and its best relievers in a finale that can't change anything. Anthony Kay starts for Chicago with a 4.53 ERA, and he hasn't finished five innings in any of his last six starts. Chicago's bullpen used seven pitchers yesterday. Kyle Freeland's 6.58 ERA is the number working against both bets, and it's ugly. He does throw strikes, with 29 walks in 131.1 innings. In August he allowed one run over nine innings against Kansas City and one run over eight in San Francisco. The Rockies' bats travel poorly: they score 4.30 runs per game on the road, against 5.01 at home. Bigger bets have found Colorado even with few bettors on board. Take away Chicago's urgency and this becomes a low-scoring game between two ordinary rosters, one of them priced like a contender. Colorado needs to win this a little more than a third of the time to show a profit. Play the Rockies on the moneyline and the UNDER this afternoon.