DENVER -- Ty Blach grew up in Denver dreaming of pitching for the Rockies -- and conquering the difficult atmosphere in his hometown.
Before starting for Colorado against Oakland on Sunday afternoon at Coors Field, Blach had the added boost of watching a pitching role model -- Rockies career wins and strikeouts leader Jorge De La Rosa -- participate in pregame ceremonies surrounding the club’s 30th anniversary.
“Today I was walking in from the bullpen,” Blach said. “I was like, ‘I'm going to try to cheat on my inner Jorge De La Rosa.’ I thought that was pretty fun.”
Starting for the second straight Sunday for a club depleted by pitching injuries, Blach breezed through the first five innings of the Rockies' 2-0 win over the A's, their fifth shutout of the season. Ryan McMahon drove in both runs, on a single and a double.
After winning six of their first nine games after the All-Star break, the Rockies fell into a chastening four-game losing streak. Two of those losses were against the Nationals, costing them a chance to rise from the bottom of the National League standings. They lost to the A’s, who hold the Majors’ worst record, on Friday and Saturday.
Professional pride mixed with hometown pride for Blach. His strong start in the series finale extended his scoreless streak to 11 innings, and coupled with three scoreless frames last weekend at Miami (22 days after his previous outing), it has brought opportunity for the 32-year-old.
It’s sweet, since Blach spent the past two seasons starting and relieving for both Colorado and Triple-A Albuquerque. Manager Bud Black said Blach will start one of next weekend’s games at St. Louis.
“Just being able to put a stop to that [losing streak] was huge for the guys,” Blach said.
The Rockies may have been down after falling to the A’s by a combined score of 19-8 the previous two nights, but Blach needed to bounce back from deeper lows.
After losing 2020 and ‘21 to recovery from Tommy John surgery while with the Orioles, Blach -- who attended games at Coors from childhood through a career at Regis Jesuit High School -- signed with the Rockies last year and bounced between the Majors (1-0 with a 5.89 ERA in 24 games, including one start) and Triple-A (1-5 with a 4.50 ERA in 15 games). Colorado outrighted him at the end of the season, but he reupped on a Minor League contract.
Blach made the Major League team with an excellent Spring Training. But after he posted an 8.18 ERA in six relief appearances, the Rockies designated him for assignment. Blach could have refused to be outrighted back to Albuquerque, but “there weren’t any big league opportunities available for me at the time.”
It wasn’t all bad. During the seven-day period he was frozen after the DFA, Blach reunited with onetime Brewers strength and conditioning coach Sean McCourt and former Major League pitcher Deck McGuire, his coaches at the THROWFormance training center in Castle Rock, Colo. Then Blach set about returning to his hometown mound.
“We kind of tweaked arm slots just a little bit, just lowering it, trying to create just a little bit more sink and run on the ball,” Blach said. “Things had gotten flat early on in the season. Being able to get the arm slot down a little bit allowed me to use the changeup a lot better.
“I went down to Albuquerque with no expectation of coming back up -- just knowing that I'm going to go pitch. I enjoy that group down in Albuquerque, and I wanted to go just have fun playing baseball.”
Blach went 3-1 with a 4.40 ERA in 11 games (five starts) for the Isotopes.
When Sunday’s game started, De La Rosa began to flow through Blach -- who said he had faced the former big leaguer early in his career with the Giants (2016-19) but had never met him until this weekend.
Mixing the fastball, cutter and change -- a combination De La Rosa used for 86 wins and 985 strikeouts -- Blach held the A’s to three hits, struck out two and faced multiple baserunners only in the second inning.
While his club suffered, A’s manager Mark Kotsay had a chance to slip compliments to Black, his former skipper and longtime mentor.
“Blach did a great job of just mixing pitches with his changeup and cutting the ball and sinking it,” Kotsay said. “That’s old-school pitching right there. A little bit vintage, like Bud Black.”
Black said, “Ty’s a strike-thrower. … I mean, that was pitching at its finest.”
For Blach, it was admiration of De La Rosa more than imitation.
“He had a little bit of a split on his grip, while I’m more of a circle change,” Blach said. “But there’s probably a little bit of similar action.”