Senzatela is on the verge of making the Rockies’ rotation. But his mom will never see it.
scottsdale, ariz.» The rumple in the back pocket of Antonio Senzatela’s pinstriped pants follows him in every game he pitches. He always carries a gold rosary, a gift from his mom, its luster dimming but never faint. “She always told me, ‘I love you,’ ” Senzatela said. “We were very close.”
Senzatela, a 22-year-old right-hander, is one of the Rockies’ top pitching prospects, a fastball command artist with a letter-high leg kick and the strict demeanor of a boy in church. He has never pitched above Double-A, and even then only seven games for the Hartford (Conn.) Yard Goats last season.
Yet, with the spring Cactus League schedule now in its final weeks, Senzatela is pitching with a legitimate shot at Colorado’s season-opening rotation, trying to fill one of two open spots behind Jon Gray, Tyler Chatwood and Tyler Anderson.
It would be a giant leap for Senzatela, a rare skip over Triple-A in an organization often reluctant to push its young pitchers too hard too fast into Coors Field, under the looming third deck of a stadium with a brutally big outfield.
When Nidya, Senzatela’s mom, called him at midseason last year, she asked if he could visit. He was watching Yard Goats games from the bench, nursing a shoulder injury, learning the game without playing it and thinking about home. He missed his mom’s Venezuelan lasagna and pasticho, and the arepas and empanadas she made for him and his sisters.
So he flew to Valencia, his hometown in Venezuela. He wasn’t worried. “I didn’t know she was sick. She didn’t want to tell me,” he said. “I think she wanted me to stay focused on baseball.”
A week and a half later, Nidya was gone. “She got cancer and died,” he said. Stomach cancer. She was 52.
Everything happened quickly. Senzatela stayed with his mom in the hospital, even sleeping next to
her so she wouldn’t be alone. His dad separated from Nidya about 10 years ago. And Senzatela signed with the Rockies when he was 16 years old. He could only share stories with his mom on the phone.
“She was fine every time I talked to her. But last year, she started feeling bad in the stomach. So she went to the doctor and the doctor said, ‘You have problems. Big problems,’ ” Senzatela said. “She told me she can beat the cancer, but something happened. She was fine before that. That’s why it was so hard.”
Catching the Rockies’ eye
When the Rockies first scouted Senzatela as a 15-year-old, he was playing on a busy dirt field in the suburbs of Valencia. Rolando Fernandez, the Rockies’ vice president of international scouting, immediately noticed Senzatela’s preternatural ability to throw strikes.
Nidya was watching too, as she always did, from the shade nearby. She was sitting behind a mango tree.
“She loved baseball. She was always around,” Fernandez said. “She was like him. Or, rather, he is like her. Very friendly, well-mannered. Quiet, but not afraid to speak when you talk to her. You can see why he is like he is.”
A year later, in 2011, the Rockies signed the 16-year-old Senzatela to a $250,000 international free-agent contract, then waited a year for him to finish school. By 17, he was training and playing in the Dominican Summer League.
Senzatela was good, with a deceptive changeup that churns through his motion in the same way as his fastball. He learned to throw a curveball, then really took to throwing a slider. But Senzatela was just one of many prospects, another uniform looking to break through stateside.
The Rockies sent him to Pasco, Wash., from Valencia. Nidya called him often. But she never saw him play professional baseball in the United States.
“She always wanted to know if he was doing the right thing,” Fernandez said. “I don’t think she knew then, or Antonio, how good he can be. They were just a good family that loved baseball. And she was a mom making sure her kid was in the right places.
“As close as they were, I’m very surprised how well he handled it,” Fernandez said. “On his own, maybe he’s still crying.”
“Definitely in the running”
Senzatela, at 6-foot-1 and 180 pounds, generates a 95 mph fastball with life. Scouts say he can hit 98 mph when he’s angry. But he rarely gets emotional on a baseball field.
The Rockies are looking for two starters among a group of four young prospects. Senzatela is in a competition against Jeff Hoffman, 24, a tall right-hander and first-round draft pick acquired in the Troy Tulowitzki trade in 2015; left-hander Kyle Freeland, 23, a former standout at Denver’s Thomas Jefferson High School, who pitched 12 games at Triple-A last year; and German Marquez, 22, who came to Colorado from Tampa Bay in a trade involving Corey Dickerson last year.
Each has more experience than Senzatela. And the Rockies, three years ago, got burned by calling up young prospect Eddie Butler from Double-A too soon, only to watch him struggle through three seasons before trading him. They have not leap-frogged a pitcher two levels since. But they may do it with Senzatela. In 14M innings this spring, he has given up seven runs, with 16 strikeouts and one walk.
“He’s definitely in the running,” said Mark Wiley, the Rockies’ director of pitching operations. “He’s very under control. He doesn’t get frustrated. He understands going pitch by pitch. If he throws a couple scuds, he can get himself back under control.”
In Little League, Senzatela could always hear his mom from the stands. She was quiet, but maybe her voice was loud only to his ears. He could hear her above the boisterousness of the biggest baseball stadium in Valencia when he pitched for Magallanes in the Venezuelan winter league.
Senzatela will never hear Nidya at Coors Field. But her rosary will be in his pocket.
“It’s a dream for everybody, to make the big-league team,” he said. “But I’m just trying to work hard. That’s what she wanted me to do, work hard. And I just want to do what she wanted.”