Holland laments “one bad” pitch
Closer’s first season with Rockies might be his last with them
PHOENIX» A wild and twisting playoff game Wednesday night at Chase Field paraded through big hits after timely turns, but the outcome was reduced to a single pitch — at least according to the man who threw it.
“I threw 18 pitches and one bad one,” said Rockies all-star closer Greg Holland. “I should have thrown one more good pitch.”
Holland, who helped carry the Rockies to the top of the National League West as late as June 20, faltered at the end. And while Holland deserves no more or less blame than anyone else for the Rockies’ 11-8 elimination loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks in the NL wild-card game, he will eat the result.
Holland helped turn the Rockies around. And if the Rockies want Holland to return as their closer, it will cost them.
“I haven’t thought one bit about it. I’ve just thought about giving up three runs,” Holland said.
Holland’s eighth inning Wednesday played out like an exact reduction of his season. He jogged to the mound with one out and Paul Goldschmidt on first base, ready to face the heart of Arizona’s lineup. He alternated a fastball-mix that tripped up slugger J.D. Martinez, who grounded into a forceout.
Holland had a two-strike
count against Jake Lamb before giving up a line-drive single. Then a level-plane slider to A.J. Pollock turned into a game-clinching, two-run triple.
“I was up 1-2 and I threw my best pitch, my slider, and it was away, but it was midthigh and he stayed with it and hit it,” Holland said. “That’s not where I want the pitch to be, and he hurt me with it.
“It is frustrating when you score four runs in the last three innings. I feel like that’s a game we would have won had I kept it to a one-run game. I just had that sense, that feeling.”
That sense played out all season. Holland was dominating at times in his return from Tommy John elbow reconstruction surgery in 2015, an injury that forced him to miss the Kansas City Royals’ run to a World Series title, then all of 2016. The Rockies took a chance on him with an incentives-heavy contract that he quickly qualified for. His $7 million base deal for 2017 added at least $9 million in bonuses.
His success also kicked in a clause that turned a $10 million mutual option for 2018 into a $15 million player option. Holland hasn’t announced what he will do. But it’s likely that he will decline that contract and become a free agent. Mark Melancon, for comparison, signed a four-year, $62 million contract with the San Francisco Giants before this season.
But just like Holland’s outing Wednesday slipped at the end, so too did his season. In a six-game stretch through August, Holland blew three save opportunities and lost another, posting an 18.00 ERA over that span. His 1.62 ERA through the first half ballooned to a 6.38 ERA in the second half.
And his average velocity dipped by 3 mph compared with his best season in 2013, according to Fangraphs. Holland’s average fastball was 93.7 mph — about the same velocity he had in 2015 as his right elbow began to shred.
After the Rockies’ 2017 season ended in defeat, Holland looked back in surprise at how well he melded into his new team. “Good teams have that kind of chemistry,” he said. And the Rockies forced Holland, sometimes against his first instinct, into rest, especially early in the season.
Manager Bud Black stuck with Holland through his August slump, and it worked. Holland had a 1.86 ERA and five saves in 10 appearances in September.
The Rockies were desperate for a shutdown closer. They found one. Holland anchored a bullpen that helped propel them to the playoffs, a bullpen that in recent seasons without him caused so much frustration. But that one thigh-high slider that became a triple might be among his last with Colorado.
“When a team in your division rattles off 102 wins, it comes down to a one-game scenario and one team has to lose. It’s unfortunate,” Holland said. “I really felt like, if we get out of the first game, we have a team that could end up winning the World Series.”