Rocuies’ starting five need to be fabulous
things in order to compete. We really paid attention to nutrition and things like that.”
Colorado’s 2018 staff featured four pitchers who made at least 30 starts: Freeland and Marquez (33); lefty Tyler Anderson (32); and Gray (31).
But pitching is also about having the right mindset, especially at Coors Field.
“It’s going to go on in baseball forever; that pitching at Coors Field is a nightmare or a death sentence or whatever,” Freeland said. “But I think this is a great oppor tunity for pitchers like myself and Marquez and ‘Senza’ and Jon to step up and prove people wrong.”
In order to do that, the Rockies will have to pitch with a consistency that’s been lacking. Freeland, for example, imploded after his banner 2018 season, going 3-11 with a 6.73 ERA in 2019 — a season that included a tuneup at Triple-a Albuquerque.
Gray has been all over the map. His 2017 season, though sidetracked by a broken bone in his foot, was his best. He finished 10-4 with a 3.67 ERA across 20 star ts. In 2018, even though the rotation shined as a whole, Gray was inconsistent (12-9, 5.12 ERA). The right-hander was good again in 2019 (11-8, 3.84), but was bad in his injuryshor tened, pandemic-shor tened 2020 season (2-4, 6.69).
Black wants his star ters to log a lot of innings and they delivered last season, pitching 320 innings, secondmost behind Cincinnati (325). But the collective 4.83 ERA was the sixth-highest in the NL and Rockies star ters gave up 3.15 walks per nine innings.
“We can be extremely good — if we can be consistent,” Freeland said. “It falls on us to show up ever y day, giving the team a chance to win every single night, no matter who we’re playing. … We have to be able to go out and show that we can be consistent.”
Cook was an all-star for the Rockies in 2008. His advice to the current Rockies starters would be to follow the philosophy that the 2009 rotation took to heart.
“We attacked the zone and attacked hitters, and we didn’t walk a lot of guys,” Cook said. “Marquis, when he came in, brought a mentality of being really aggressive and attacking guys with your stuff in the zone and letting it play.”
That approach was reflected in Colorado starters’ 51.1% groundball rate, the highest in the NL.
“And a lot of our success that year was about knowing your stuff and knowing yourself,” Cook said. “We talked a lot about that. It was impor tant to know what you had and know what you didn’t have. We didn’t tr y to be something we weren’t.”
The 2021 Rockies would do well to follow Cook’s game plan.
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