GRAY ANALYZES A GAME INNING BY INNING
Rockies right-hander dissects one game at Coors Field inning by inning
Three-and-a-half hours before first pitch, Jon Gray is lounging in front of his locker in the Rockies’ clubhouse at Coors Field. His 6-foot-4 frame is stretched out full, and he’s wearing noise-canceling headphones.
Gray is starting a Friday night game against the Cincinnati Reds, and the 27year-old right-hander knows his team desperately needs him to deliver. It’s the first game after the all-star break, and the Rockies are trying to snap a sixgame losing streak. While Colorado’s pitching has gone from bad to worse, Gray has emerged as its most dependable starter, posting a 9-6 record and 3.92 ERA before the break.
“He’s shown marked improvement from what we saw last year with that bit of a roller-coaster ride, so I’m really proud of Jon,” manager Bud Black said a few days before. “His velocity is up, and Jon’s made a little bit of a tweak with his grip on a couple different pitches. He’s shown signs of being in control of games, which is great.”
Coors Field, always a tough place to pitch, has become the Nightmare On Blake Street in 2019. Colorado pitchers have a 6.57 ERA there, and home runs are leaving contrails in the mile-high sky. Gray says he is not intimidated.
“I don’t try to fool myself into thinking it’s easy to pitch here,” Gray said. “I know it’s hard to pitch here, and I take a lot of pride in that. You know that other guy has to deal with it, too. So deep down inside, you have to know that you are more prepared for it than the guy on
the other side.”
What follows is one baseball game at Coors Field, as seen from Gray’s perspective:
Pregame
Gray, the third overall pick in the 2013 draft, was projected to be an ace. That has not happened yet, and poor performances in some high-profile games have led critics to tag Gray as mentally soft. He says he doesn’t listen to the talk, but he’s made a concerted effort to change his routine and his mind-set.
“In the past, I was always a guy who would try to find his footing once I was out on the mound,” he said. “I was one of those guys who would try to find his tempo and rhythm while getting a couple of outs in the first inning. I wanted to change that. I wanted to be the guy who was super ready going into the game.”
Hence the headphones and the highly structured pregame routine. As Gray sits at his locker, he blocks everything out, does deepbreathing exercises and envisions what he wants to do when takes the mound.
“In the past, I would visualize (batters) swinging over my breaking stuff or swinging past fastballs,” he explained. “It’s different now. I see the mound and the rubber below me and I see the catcher’s target; I see Tony (Wolters) or Chris (Iannetta’s) glove. I try to visualize throwing in a hallway, blocking everything else out.”
First inning
Gray’s first pitch comes at 6:40 p.m. on a perfect summer night in Lodo with a temperature of 82 degrees. The announced crowd will be 41,368.
He starts off by throwing two 95 mph fastballs to Reds leadoff hitter Jesse Winker. Winker takes the first pitch for a strike and fouls off the second.
“Throwing the first couple of pitches is always kind of difficult because it never feels the same in the bullpen warming up as it does when you get out there on the mound,” Gray said. “I try to get strike one, obviously, but I try to visualize that hallway, get really tall and try to throw a good fastball downhill.”
Gray strikes out Winker swinging over the top of a 2-2, 90.5 mph slider — a pitch that has been hitand-miss for Gray this season.
Up next is perennial all-star Joey Votto. Even though Votto, 35, is having a down year, he’s still considered one of the toughest outs in baseball. Gray gets ahead 0-2 with a fastball and a curve, before getting Votto to ground out back to the mound on a 90 mph slider. Before the game, Gray and Wolters had huddled and talked about the best way to attack Votto.
“Guys like Votto are so smart, and they have been around so long and are so good at making contact, so you know they are not going to swing at bad pitches,” Gray said. “If you stay in one area too much with Votto, he’s going to crush the second or third pitch he sees.
“So we tried to fool him. We kind of threw weird pitches at him. Our plan was to keep him offbalance. We threw him a curveball on the second pitch and I could tell he wasn’t expecting.”
Gray finishes off the one-twothree inning by getting Eugenio Suarez to ground out on a hot shot to shortstop Trevor Story.
Second inning
Gray sets the Reds down in order again. The inning features an 11-pitch battle between Gray and the dangerous Derek Dietrich, with Gray finally prevailing with a 3-2, 96 mph fastball that Dietrich pounds to third baseman Nolan Arenado.
“At that point, it’s about not making mistakes,” Gray said. “It’s about making a quality pitch and letting the guy get himself out. He’s up there fighting and he really wants to win that at-bat, since he’s already seen 10 pitches. If I throw even an average fastball, and locate it properly, down and away, I can guarantee you that I’m going to get you out 90 percent of the time, because you are going to swing.”
Third inning
Jose Iglesias leads off with a single on Gray’s 2-2 curveball. Gray is unhappy with the pitch.
“That was a mental mistake by me,” he said. “He’s a good curveball hitter and he hit that pretty well. That should have been a pitch in the dirt.”
Still, Gray gets out of the inning with no problems, striking out Winker with a 79 mph curve for the final out. Gray sets up Winker with a 90 mph slider, followed by a 96.9 mph fastball, followed by an 89.6 mph slider.
“I was pumped about that curve,” Gray said. “The thing about my curveball is that if I throw it to the right area, it usually works because it’s so much slower than everything else.”
The curveball stokes not only Gray’s confidence in the pitch, but also Wolters’.
“Jon’s curve can be a really good pitch, because guys are looking for his slider so much,” Wolters said.
Fourth inning
Colorado’s defense shines in a quick one-two-three frame that requires Gray to throw just 12 pitches. Arenado, the six-time Gold Glove winner, pulls off the play of the game, throwing out Yasiel Puig by half a step. Gray claps his glove in admiration as he walks off the mound.
“It was a swinging bunt and Nolan got him — just barely,” Gray said. “When Puig hit it, I was thinking, ‘This stinks, just give me the ball already.’
“I mean, I threw Puig a good fastball but it looked like he was going to get a cheap hit. But then I looked over, and sure enough, Nolan’s going for it, trying to make something happen. I can’t quite explain it, because it’s weird how good he is. When I say it catches me by surprise, I mean it, it really does catch me by surprise. Even after all this time, I’m amazed.”
Fifth inning
This is Gray’s best inning. He fans Dietrich looking at a 78.2 mph curveball, setting him up with a slider and fastball. Then he whiffs Nick Senzel on four pitches, with Senzel going down swinging at another curve. Gray ends the inning by throwing an 86.5 mph changeup that Iglesias tops to second baseman Ryan Mcmahon.
Gray throws his changeup just 2.5 percent of the time, according to Fangraphs, but Wolters thinks this is the perfect time to unleash it.
“Iglesias is a guy who was diving at my pitches down and away a lot,” Gray said. “Tony’s thought was to throw a changeup inside. Tony just showed (the sign), and I instantly liked the idea. I think Tony and I kind of see and feel the same things, we get on the same wavelength. Sometimes we aren’t on the same page, but most of the time we are.”
Sixth inning
This is the kind of inning that used to blow up on Gray, but teammates say he’s a different pitcher this year.
“You can see his confidence building and he’s kind of got a swagger about him out there,” Story said. “It doesn’t seem like he’s getting fazed by bad breaks.”
The game is scoreless when Curt Casali rips Gray’s first-pitch, 97.2 mph fastball for a one-out single to right. No big deal, Gray thinks. Winker, a left-handed hitter, is up next and the Rockies employ an extreme shift, with Arenado moving far from third base and into the shortstop’s spot.
On Gray’s 0-2, a 95 mph fastball, Winker beats the shift, sending the ball inside the third-base line. Winker doesn’t hit the ball very hard, but left fielder David Dahl misplays the carom off the side wall, allowing Casali to score and Winker to cruise into third. Colorado escapes further damage when Gray strikes out Votto on a 3-2 count with his best slider of the night and Wolters picks Winker off third.
“That hit by Winker, in the past, it would have frustrated me and clouded my judgement for the next batter,” Gray said. “I think I would have been (ticked) off and just reached back and thrown heat.
“But I didn’t and I felt really good about that pitch to Votto. It was my favorite pitch of the night. It reminded me a lot of 2016 because I tunneled a great slider down and in to a lefty.
“I had thrown him three fastballs up and in, so I knew all I had to do was make him swing. So I gripped my slider, but I wanted to make him think I was showing him fastball in the middle of the plate. And sure enough, I threw the slider exactly like I wanted to.”
Seventh inning
Cincinnati takes a 2-1 lead on Suarez’s leadoff home run. Suarez smacks Gray’s full-count 97 mph fastball into the right-field corner. The ball travels only 372 feet and barely stays fair, but it’s enough to give the Reds the lead.
“He hit a really good pitch … 97 and down on the black,” Gray said. “Sometimes you just have to tip your cap. So I was able to see it for what it was. I threw the pitch exactly like I wanted to, so I didn’t have any regrets. It was a good swing by him. It stinks, but I don’t think I would do anything different.”
Gray finishes his start by striking out Senzel on three pitches, getting the final out on a sharpbreaking slider.
Postscript
Gray departs trailing 2-1, but solo home runs in the eighth by Dahl and Daniel Murphy lift the Rockies to a 3-2 win, ending their six-game losing skid. Gray, however, does not pick up his 10th win.
“I was thrilled that we won,” Gray said. “I was satisfied with my performance. I kept us in the game, I threw my fastball well and I threw my some good off-speed pitches in big moments. Overall, it was a step forward for me.”
This is a big season for Gray, who retooled his mind and body in the offseason after a bad 2018. He’s still far away from being the dominant pitcher he believes he can be, but the way he maneuvered through seven innings at Coors Field illustrated his promise.
“I feel like everything is coming together,” he said. “I’m understanding myself as a pitcher more and more, and I’m making better decisions on the mound. It’s amazing how much I’ve learned about pitching, and about myself.”