Rockies Bring Goodman's Power to Comerica Against Struggling Tigers

Two teams on the wrong side of .500 meet Friday night at Comerica Park, where a 6:40 PM ET first pitch kicks off what looks like a late-season audition for pride points. Our model doesn't have a validated read on this one — so we're going straight to the tape.

Detroit enters at 67-79, which is better than Colorado's 55-91 but hardly a ringing endorsement of either club's 2026. The Tigers are at home, which matters, but neither roster is playing for anything beyond individual milestones and organizational evaluation at this point in September. Framber Valdez is expected to take the mound for Detroit — a legitimate arm tasked with keeping a Rockies lineup that carries genuine pop from doing damage. Mason Adams is set to start for Colorado, and he'll need to navigate a Tigers offense that has quietly produced.

The player to circle on the Colorado side is Hunter Goodman. Thirty-seven home runs and 78 RBI are not numbers you dismiss, regardless of team record — that's a legitimate power season, and Goodman is the kind of hitter who can make a single mistake from a starter look catastrophic on the scoreboard. TJ Rumfield's .295 average gives the Rockies a contact presence at the top of the order to set the table. Detroit counters with Dillon Dingler, who leads the Tigers with 26 home runs and 85 RBI — the RBI total in particular suggests he's been productive in run situations all year. Riley Greene's .275 average gives Detroit a reliable bat to build around in the lineup.

With no validated model read available for this game, there's no algorithmic lean to anchor the pick — and honestly, that's fine. What we do know is that Goodman's power against a starting pitcher who can be gotten to makes Colorado dangerous in spots, while Dingler's run production gives Detroit a genuine middle-of-the-order threat. This is a game where individual performances will tell the story more than any team-level narrative. Watch Goodman and Dingler — whichever power bat does more damage tonight likely determines which side walks away with a win.