The changes Rockies righty reliever Carlos Estévez is making -- in hopes of being more deceptive and effective -- have not taken with any consistency.

Estévez, who struggled in Spring Training games while working through the adjustments, gave up a run his first appearance, then settled down in his third, breezing through the ninth inning with one strikeout during Tuesday night’s eventual 10-8 loss to the D-backs at Coors Field.

But Thursday, Estévez gave up a hard grounder, then yielded a Pavin Smith double on a changeup and an Eduardo Escobar upper-deck homer in the ninth inning. Estévez finished his outing by walking two batters to create a save situation for Daniel Bard in the Rockies’ 7-3 victory.

The Rockies hope they can depend on Estévez in close games, but he must be more consistent.

“It looked like he got a changeup up to Smith, the ball that went into right-center,” Rockies manager Bud Black said. “Escobar, probably that ball went down the middle with the type of swing he put on it, about thigh-high. I think he just missed his spots.

“I saw velocity with the fastball. I didn’t see great location with a lot of his pitches.”

Estévez is increasing the use of his changeup, having thrown it on 23.1 percent of his pitches so far, as opposed to 12.4 percent last year. The goal is to use his change and his slider to keep hitters off his fastball. There have been no hits off the slider and a .200 average against the changeup.

But none of that is going to matter until Estévez's fastball improves. This chart shows that his command is scattered. He is either over the plate, often in meaty locations, or missing the zone uncompetitively -- conditions that don’t allow for deception.

Now, match the over-the-plate locations in the chart above with the batting averages in these squares below:

The improvements of Estévez's secondary pitches will matter only when he can spot his fastball properly.

Shuffling the hitters
During the first homestand, Black felt that hitters lower in the order were swinging well out the gate, so his strategy is to move them higher. That’s why Garrett Hampson hit leadoff for the third straight game on Friday, and Ryan McMahon -- who brought his homer total to four with three on Tuesday -- batted second in the Rockies' 3-1 loss to the Giants. Hampson went 0-for-3 with a sac fly, and McMahon went 0-for-4.

“You want to get the guys who are swinging the bat best up the most, and you want to do that from the get-go,” Black said.

Trevor Story and Charlie Blackmon have low averages but several hard-hit balls -- especially Story, who has an MLB-high six “mostly gone” balls, per Statcast -- hits that would have been homers in anywhere from eight to 29 other ballparks. No other player had more than three. Story went 1-for-4 with a single on Friday, while Blackmon went 0-for-3 -- and was ejected in the seventh inning for arguing balls and strikes.

The information age
After holding the D-backs to one run in 6 2/3 innings on Thursday, right-hander Jon Gray said his pitch-caller, catcher Dom Nuñez, made strategy easy for him.

“When we talk about the lineup before the game, he puts everything really simple -- ‘Hey, if you just put a slider down to this guy, we get a ground ball, easy,’” Gray said. “It just brings you a lot of confidence. It makes you realize how easy it is, not giving the hitter too much credit.”

Nuñez is a rookie; however, he has been to Major League camp the past four years. Last year, at the alternate training site and on the taxi squad, he worked with pitchers during bullpen sessions. Nuñez even caught relievers in the bullpen during games.

As a result, Nuñez knows the pitchers and is familiar with the information flow that goes into game plans. And he has learned what information is important.

“First and foremost, you always go off your pitcher’s strengths, what he has that day, what he has maybe in the bullpen, and hopefully early on, you can kind of get a gauge of what pitches are going to work,” Nuñez said. “Then hopefully it matches up with the team that we're facing.”