Efficient Davis quietly making the closer role look routine
Nolan Arenado knew the Rockies had signed a special breed of closer early in spring training when he sat with Wade Davis in the video room at Salt River Fields and the right-hander caused the third baseman to suffer a partial identity crisis.
“I asked him how he approached me when I faced him last year, and he told me some things that I never would’ve thought of,” Arenado said. “It made me realize I need to understand who I am a little bit more, because he understands exactly who he is.”
Who Davis has been this season is everything Colorado thought he would be when the club inked him to a three-year, $52 million deal in December that made the former Ray, Royal and Cub the most expensive reliever in major-league history by annual value.
The 32-year-old leads baseball with 14 saves entering the weekend, and yet the stoic “thinking man’s closer” somehow isn’t gobbling up headlines. Maybe that’s because of the team’s distracting problems on offense, or maybe it’s because the rest of the bullpen has also, for the most part, been nails.
Or, as pointed out by reliever Adam Ottavino — the gem of the Rockies’ bullpen so far with a 1.29 ERA and 0.71 WHIP in 21.0 in- nings of work entering Saturday — maybe the lack of attention Davis receives on a day-to-day basis in Denver is simply because his excellence has become an uninteresting expectation.
“When you’re the best, people start to get used to that,” Ottavino theorized. “With him — he had around a 1.00 ERA for three years (in Kansas City), and then was one of the best last year in Chicago — people just expect it. So when he does good, it’s not a story.”
Davis needed only seven pitches to sprint through his spring training debut, and since that day he’s continued to perform with boring efficiency, surpassing 20 pitches in just three of his 16 regu-
lar-season appearances.
And for his part, Davis is content with playing the role of anonymous all-star — “attention can sometimes be counterproductive,” he pointed out — with a repertoire of plus-pitches (fastball, curve, slider, cutter) that keeps everyone in the ballpark but him guessing.
“With some guys, when they get on the mound, you know they’re going to throw this pitch or that pitch in a situation,” Rockies reliever Mike Dunn said. “When Wade’s up there, you have no idea what pitch he’s going to throw — we’re always trying to guess out in the bullpen — and he’s got 100 percent conviction behind all his pitches.”
It seems the only interesting Davis storyline left to be discussed is whether he can maintain his torrid pace.
Manager Bud Black doesn’t believe there’s any “overall concerns about the long-range consistency of Wade” throughout the grind of a 162-game season that ending up wearing down the Rockies’ 2017 closer, Greg Holland.
Holland was dominant in the first half of last year, converting 28 of 29 save opportunities, but lost his magic after the all-star break to the tune of a 6.38 ERA and three blown saves in August alone.
“I think Holland was a little bit different from the standpoint he was coming off Tommy John (surgery), and he hadn’t pitched the year before — that had a lot to do with (his second-half struggles),” bullpen coach Darren Holmes said. “With Wade, we’ve been good at monitoring his usage — he hasn’t pitched more than two days in a row so far, and we’ve been keeping the communication open every day on how he’s feeling.”
Meanwhile, as Colorado’s offense continues to search for its collective identity, Davis remains a ninth-inning rock. Even two blown saves so far this year, against Atlanta on April 7 and against the Brewers on Friday night, have done nothing to deter the widespread feeling in the clubhouse that the Rockies possess one of the best, if not the best, closer in the majors.
“Even if he does give up a save,” Arenado said, “there’s nobody I would rather go down with than Wade Davis.”
“When Wade’s up there, you have no idea what pitch he’s going to throw — we’re always trying to guess out in the bullpen — and he’s got 100 percent conviction behind all his pitches.”
Rockies reliever Mike Dunn on closer Wade Davis