Gray wants game to be fun again
Right-hander doing his best to erase tough, frustrating 2018 season
Jon Gray sat in a Starbucks near his home in northwest Denver on Tuesday afternoon. Although his quads were barking after enduring his first offseason workout Monday, he looked happy and relaxed.
He looked ready for a fresh start.
The past season, with all of its ups, downs and disappointments, has not been forgotten. Rather, it serves as motivation for the talented Rockies right-hander, who has only sporadically met the lofty expectations of being the third overall pick in the 2013 draft.
With a goal of adding 20 pounds of muscle to his 6-foot-4 frame, he’s begun working out at Landow Performance in Centennial, the facility owned and directed by Broncos strength and conditioning coach Loren Landow. In January, Gray plans to travel to Driveline Baseball facility in Kent, Wash. to use its data- and technology-driven methods to improve his pitching, much as reliever Adam Ottavino did last winter.
“I really feel confident,” Gray said. “I think it’s a good year to (go up there). I need that right now. I feel like that’s what’s going to push me forward.”
Gray hopes the bitter disappointment of the past season — when he finished with a 5.12 ERA (up drastically from a 3.67 ERA in 2017) and served up a career-high 27 home runs — will drive him. He doesn’t want a repeat, when he was sent down to Triple-A for a tune-up in June and then did not make the postseason roster in October.
“It (stunk). It made me hate baseball a lot last year,” Gray said. “I wasn’t really having fun at all. I kind of hated it. I’m ready to be a part of things. I feel I missed out on too much. I’m kind of (ticked) off about that, so I’m just ready to use this as motivation to make myself bigger and stronger. I’m going to throw the ball 100 miles an hour again.”
At the end of the season, Gray said he “wasn’t healthy,” explaining that his weight had dropped from 230 pounds to 210. Last month, when general manager Jeff Bridich was asked to explain Gray’s weight loss, Bridich said: “We’ll let him answer that.”
Monday, Gray said it was his inability to eat properly on game days that most negatively affected him. As a result, his fastball velocity, which was 95-96 mph early in the season, dipped to 93-94 mph.
“It was just the eating thing I’ve always had trouble with on start days,” he said. “I don’t think it’s anything like (an illness). My metabolism did speed up a lot. But it was more like every five days I couldn’t eat a lot. I think that was the way it was. It was hard to maintain your weight if every five days you can’t eat. So it’s something I have to change.”
Gray flashed his talents, at times last season. For example, during a stretch from July 14-Aug. 5, he pitched seven or more innings and allowed two or fewer earned runs over four consecutive starts. But then came his lackluster performance against Washington on the final Saturday of the season. A victory at Coors Field might have given the Rockies their first National League West title, but Gray imploded, pitching only two innings, allowing five runs on seven hits in a 12-2 loss.
Gray expects things to be different in 2019. In fact, he thinks he can be one of the missing pieces to get the Rockies to the World Series.
“I want the ball against (the Dodgers), I want the ball against whoever to win a game,” he said. “I know that when I am right, pitching becomes fun. When things are right, I almost feel like it’s a joke, because I can tell people what’s coming and they can’t hit it.
“I want to get to that point again. I want to get to that point where my stuff is nasty. When I feel like myself out there, I start to trust it. It’s tough to explain, but when you get in that groove like that, it’s a dance. That’s what I want to feel.”