Rockies To Promote Peter Lambert

The Rockies will promote Peter Lambert from Triple-A in time for the 22-year-old right-hander to start tomorrow’s game against the Cubs, according to several reports.  The Athletic’s Nick Groke tweets that Lambert is already at Wrigley Field today in preparation for his upcoming Major League debut.

A second-round pick for the Rockies (44th overall) in the 2015 draft, Lambert has a 3.92 ERA, 7.5 K/9, and 3.61 K/BB over 508 professional innings.  Those numbers include a troubling 5.07 ERA in 60 1/3 Triple-A frames this season, though an inflated 1.5 HR/9 in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League could be an explanation.

Prior to the season, ESPN.com’s Keith Law (subscription required) ranked Lambert as the 92nd-best prospect in baseball, describing the righty as owning a repeatable delivery and a quality four-pitch mix, even if nothing in Lambert’s arsenal is considered a true plus pitch.  Lambert’s fastball is in the 94-95mph range, while he has generated consistently good ground-ball rates of close to 50% throughout his minor league career.

Lambert will get his chance in a Rockies rotation that has struggled to match its strong results from last season, as German Marquez and Jon Gray have been Colorado’s only consistently good starters.  As of sign how quickly things have changed from 2018 to 2019 for the Rockies’ staff, Lambert will take the place of Kyle Freeland, a fourth-place finisher in NL Cy Young voting last season who was sent down to Triple-A last week after scuffling badly in his first 12 outings this year.