SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- A young and effective starting pitching staff fueled the Rockies’ postseason trips in 2017 and 2018. After the necessary additions around the roster are made, a return to such heights in ’22 will depend largely on the rotation, which has been effective more often than not in the interim.
Three members of the contending rotations, all of whom threw their first Major League pitch in ’17, remain.
Righty Germán Márquez is coming off his first All-Star Game invitation. Lefty Kyle Freeland had a rough 2019 but the rest of his career adds up to a solid track record. Righty Antonio Senzatela executed a stretch where he met his considerable potential, with at least six innings per game over a nine-start late-season stretch -- with three or fewer earned runs in eight of those games. Add to them lefty Austin Gomber, who came from the Cardinals in the Nolan Arenado trade and went 5-1 with a 2.09 ERA in nine starts at Coors Field.
The current hot news is the Rockies’ pursuit of an impact, middle-of-the-order bat. Kris Bryant is mentioned most, but the club also is in play for Kyle Schwarber and Michael Conforto. One would make a major difference in the lineup. But over the course of the season, the rotation has to carry its load for the offense to be relevant.
It’s not fair that the two straight postseason berths, which had never happened previously for a team that began play in 1993, are forgotten. But more fresh are the three straight fourth-place finishes in the National League West and the departures of popular key players -- the latest being rotation member Jon Gray, who signed with the Rangers, and shortstop Trevor Story, who decided to seek fortune elsewhere.
But as the rotation proved in the past, a string of steady starts and late-season playoff relevancy can flip the mood.
“Being in the playoffs is a good feeling,” Márquez said. “For me, I feel like we don’t bring the negativity to the team. We have to keep going, stay positive. We’re good at that.”
The rotation was not blameless for last year’s 74-87 finish. Poor work from starters bore much responsibility for an 0-6 first road trip of the season, and no facet was particularly good by the time the Rockies fell to 16 games below .500 through June 27.
But Freeland, who missed April and much of May with a left shoulder injury, struck out seven in five innings of a 2-0 victory over the Pirates on June 28, and Márquez took a no-hitter into the ninth inning of a one-hit, 8-0 domination of the Pirates the next night. While nobody was celebrating the 43-40 record that began with Freeland’s game, the key rotation members were generally good -- better than that in stretches.
The Rockies’ rotation, along with the rest of the world, was looking for a return to normal for 2022. There was the shortened 2020. In '21, possibly in a residual from a strange previous year, all the starters except Márquez took turns on the injured list and Senzatela was felled by COVID-19 during the All-Star break.
A 99-day lockout, which delayed the start of Spring Training for a month, scuttled this year’s normalcy, but pitchers say they have absorbed this year’s delay well.
Márquez faced collegiate hitters at Metropolitan State University Denver, and Senzatela faced several Major League hitters and threw to veteran and former Rockies catcher Drew Butera in Orlando, Fla. Freeland and Gomber, who was shut down in early September because of a stress fracture in his back, arrived early to Scottsdale and simulated innings -- throwing enough pitches for an inning, sitting down as if their team were batting, then getting up again -- to prepare for a shortened camp.
“Normality is going to start filling in, especially in the season once we start getting into the swing of things,” Freeland said. “With the shortened Spring Training and the condensed schedule, health is going to be on the top of everyone’s charts.”
The Rockies added to the rotation Monday, when they came to a reported one-year, $3 million agreement with former Pirates righty Chad Kuhl. The move means that, barring injury, lefty and No. 3 MLB Pipeline Rockies prospect Ryan Rolison can have development time if needed. Also, righty Peter Lambert and non-roster lefty Ty Blach, each two years removed from Tommy John elbow surgery, are not pressed.
The hope is for a rotation that is not surprised by its quality to help the Rockies become a surprise team.
“I don’t think it’s any secret that one of the strongest aspects of our team was our starting rotation,” Gomber said. “We know the responsibility we have.”