Freeland looks to re-establish consistency starting with opener
In 2018, Kyle Freeland set a Rockies record with a 2.85 ERA and finished fourth in the National League Cy Young voting.
But he hasn’t been the same pitcher since. He bombed in 2019 (optioned to Triple-a and finished with a 6.73 ERA), then posted a 4.33 ERA over each of the past two years.
That backstory makes Freeland taking the ball for Friday’s season opener against the Dodgers at Coors Field all the more important.
The Thomas Jefferson High School graduate still needs to prove he’s an essential part of the team’s core going forward. It’s a role he and his teammates believe he’s capable of, and a role Freeland must fulfill for Colorado to be competitive this summer.
“He’s about to hit his full stride,” third baseman Ryan McMahon predicted. “We all know what he’s capable of. I know that consistency is what we’re expecting from him this year.”
Freeland and the Rockies appear headed toward an in-season arbitration hearing over his 2022 salary considering his camp and Colorado’s front office were over a million dollars apart in their last exchange of figures (Freeland requesting $7.8 million, the team offering $6.425 million).
But the southpaw insisted he’s “not worried about that” as he makes his second opening day start, and second start in the home opener. Freeland debuted in the home opener in 2017 against the Dodgers, throwing six innings of one-run ball in a 2-1 win. And he also started Colorado’s season opener in 2019, allowing one run over seven innings in a 6-3 win in Miami.
“This one is going to be very special,” Freeland said. “The emotions are going to be similar
to 2017, but I think I’ll be able to control it a little bit more.”
In the first inning of that debut, Los Angeles used a single and two walks to load the bases with two outs. But Freeland induced a groundout to end the threat, and cruised the rest of the way.
“I was pretty nervous,” Freeland recalled. “That first inning was a little hairy, but after getting out of that, I was able to breathe. And now, being a veteran who’s done a couple of these now, I’ll get out there in the first inning and know what I need to do to stay in control.”
On Friday, Freeland faces a potent Dodgers lineup that features three MVPS (Freddie Freeman, Mookie Betts, Cody Bellinger) and depth far superior to nearly every other team in baseball.
But he also enters the game with re-built leg strength and revamped core strength, the result of an intensive offseason weight training program. Freeland’s trainer Nick Vinson said the 6foot-4, 205-pounder requested a “unique” plan that featured four full-body workouts a week. It was an approach that walked the line between beefing Freeland up, but also keeping him flexible and with an adequate range of motion for his whippy delivery.
“Based off his testing numbers from force plate analysis, he had his biggest jump in terms of being explosive before that 2018 season,” Vinson said. “So I think that trying to replicate that power output from him has been the primary goal, and he did that this offseason.”
Freeland also tinkered with his changeup grip this spring, but ultimately abandoned the forkstyle changeup in favor of his traditional circle changeup. While he continues to experiment with different finger placement and pressure on that pitch, he feels confident where it’s at. And his arm feels healthy, a contrast to the start of last season when Freeland began the year on the injured list.
Combine those tangibles with Freeland’s best intangible — his ability to battle on the mound — and pitching coach Darryl Scott believes Freeland is ready for a statement season.
“He’s grown from those last four seasons,” Scott said. “Everything that he’s been through is part of who he is. If you go play golf with him, if you do anything with him, you better expect to be challenged. He competes at everything he does, and he’s going to take that mindset into this season and pair it with the (experience) that he’s built on.”