Longtime Rockie Freeland tosses 1st complete game ahead of uncertain Deadline

DENVER -- If Sunday’s game was lefty Kyle Freeland's 251st and last start in a Rockies uniform, his first career complete game in an 8-1 victory over the Royals at Coors Field served the fitting bookend.

If Freeland isn’t dealt by Monday’s 4 p.m. MT Trade Deadline, the performance could be the happy start of what’s likely a goodbye after 10 seasons with the Rockies, a proud son of the city and attendee of local Thomas Jefferson High School.

Freeland’s career started on April 7, 2017, with six innings of one-run ball in a win over the Dodgers in the home opener. He braved understandable nerves then. This time he did it in the heat. The 99-degree first-pitch temperature was the second-highest in Rockies history -- behind only a 100-degree day on June 25, 2012.

“We’ll see what happens tomorrow,” Freeland said after the Rockies' third sweep of the season. “Weird stuff happens around this time. But I went into the start as another one of my starts -- same level head, same thought process, game plan. But in the back of your head, there’s the thought that this could be my last here at home. In the next 24 hours, we’ll see how that unfolds.”

Freeland’s previous three outings would have been quality starts had he not yielded a homer in the sixth inning each time – which either ended his outing short or pushed his line to four earned runs.

This time, Freeland blew through that standard. In the deepest start of his career, Freeland -- at the end of a five-year, $64.5 million contract -- held the Royals to five hits with eight strikeouts -- one shy of his season high.

It was the Rockies’ first complete game since Chad Kuhl’s on June 27, 2022, and there was no doubt that manager Warren Schaeffer was keen on letting Freeland achieve it.

Last Sept. 5, Freeland fanned 10 Padres over eight innings. But Schaeffer went to Victor Vodnik to close the 3-0 victory. Freeland was one of the veterans Schaeffer went to when he took over the squad on an interim basis last May. The more he was around Freeland, the more he learned that finishing a game was important to him. The closest he came previously was on July 9, 2017, against the White Sox when he didn’t give up a hit until his last batter -- Melky Cabrera -- singled with one out in the ninth.

“If that opportunity came around again, I was going to let him finish that thing,” Schaeffer said. “I couldn’t be happier. The boys are elated.”

Whether now or later, Freeland -- whose 1,368 2/3 innings pitched also are a club mark -- is expecting the sun to set on his Rockies career.

“There really haven’t been conversations between myself and our coaches or the front office about it,” Freeland said in days leading up to Sunday’s game. “It’s more of an understanding. We’re on the same page. I’m not having the year that I want to have in the final year of my contract.

“I don’t believe I’m going to be part of the organization moving forward and I understand that. I’ve spent the last 10 years here, but it’s an understanding that if a team does call for me, they’ve got to do what they’ve got to do for the future.”

But on Sunday, Freeland was exactly where he belonged. After John Rave’s game-ending fly ball, catcher Brett Sullivan hugged Freeland forcefully, and all the Rockies were sure to reach out and touch him as he left the field.

“It’s been a grind for him this year, and he’s shown up every single day, worked hard, no excuses,” Sullivan said. “I was getting chills back there in the ninth inning. I just really wanted it for him.”

The 2.30 ERA Freeland posted in his first three starts before sustaining left shoulder inflammation and not seeing action for two months seemed long ago before Sunday’s gem.

The consistent crooked numbers that have pushed his ERA up to 6.81 don’t lie. But the near-quality starts of late were particularly vexing.

Freeland kept the Royals off balance by constantly mixing his pitches. He kept himself cool between innings with an ice bucket. The fans, for whom he professed his love during a postgame interview over the stadium sound system, gave him that push in the final innings.

“To be able to take the ball in the ninth, have confidence going back to the mound, trying to do something special, it was awesome,” Freeland said. “And to have Schaeff have my back. … The conversations we were having during the last three innings -- during winning time -- were short and sweet. Just, ‘Are you good to go?’

“You absolutely want this type of stuff.”