ATLANTA -- Rockies rookie right-hander Chase Dollander began Saturday’s game by walking the Braves’ Ronald Acuña Jr. and Alex Verdugo on 10 pitches, with seven of the eight balls not close to the strike zone. Then he yielded a run on two singles.
Dollander is 23 and durable enough that during a brief Minor League acclimatizing, the Rockies were not as tight as with other prospects -- as long as it made sense. But Saturday’s beginning was much like his previous three games, when he didn’t make it to five innings despite throwing a potentially exhaustive number of pitches.
After the scattershot beginning, however, Dollander found his focus and mechanics to earn his 97 pitches over six innings, and held the Braves to four runs (three earned) in the Rockies’ 4-1 loss.
“As a pitcher, your focus is solely on execution,” Dollander said. “It’s having a laser focus on the mitt and trying to pepper it, every time. It’s easier said than done. But the fact I was able to hone it in the last few innings is a really good sign.”
Dollander, an Evans, Ga., native who was pitching in front of around 30 family and friends, defeated Atlanta at Coors Field on April 30, but he had no chance Saturday on the other side of Spencer Strider’s 13-strikeout, six-inning domination. The Braves’ 19 total strikeouts were their most in a nine-inning game in at least 125 seasons.
Still, by averaging 97.9 mph with his fastball -- some of them sinkers that he used more frequently and effectively than at any point of this season -- Dollander demonstrated why the Rockies are all-in with the education process.
All season, Dollander has dealt with a habit of quickened mechanics that pull him off the plate. Saturday, the adrenaline of pitching about 150 miles from home added another factor. But he snapped into “compete mode,” committed to the sinker with catcher Hunter Goodman during a dugout conversation and displayed the talents that made him the ninth overall pick in the 2023 MLB Draft.
“After the second inning, ‘Goody’ and I had a conversation in the dugout, ‘Let’s just use it [the sinker] and see what happens,'” Dollander said. “It really forces you to be directional, because if you’re not, you kind of spray it off into the right-hander’s batter’s box. That helped everything just be more directional and get my energy going toward the plate.”
Dollander stopped the first-inning tailspin by striking out Marcell Ozuna and forcing a Drake Baldwin double play. He walked just one more and gave up six total hits, but counterbalanced that with four strikeouts and two double-play grounders.
“That was a big outing for Chase, especially rolling that double-play ball in the first inning after a little shaky start,” interim manager Warren Schaeffer said. “After his last two outings where he was inefficient, he gave us six strong innings, saved the bullpen, did his job and kept the game intact.”
Every run off Dollander was a hit with two strikes, although one was a stumper. In the second inning, Acuña took a curveball on the inside corner to fall behind, 1-2. Then he reached nearly a baseball’s diameter above the zone and pulled Dollander’s 97.8 mph fastball over the left-field wall for a two-run homer.
“It was around his neck -- he tomahawked the heck out of that thing,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said.
Dollander threw 98 pitches in 4 2/3 innings on May 18, in a Rockies loss at Arizona, then went to the injured list with right forearm tightness. The next two games, he lasted just three innings with 59 and 78 pitches, respectively.
The mechanical flaws, whether they were collapsing the back leg at the start of his motion or moving his front side too quickly, were real. But thinking of those during the game took away from the job of locating a pitch and working against a hitter.
So pitching coach Darryl Scott and Dollander have separated bullpen sessions into two blocks: The first is “over the rubber,” where his emphasis is mechanics. After that, the sole focus is locating the pitch. If he misses, he is to feel what went wrong and fix it on the next pitch.
“Your body understands your delivery well enough to make those adjustments on the fly,” Scott said. “The ball is running [to the arm side]. What are my cues?”
During Saturday’s first inning, Goodman visited the mound. Veteran first baseman Kyle Farmer told him in the dugout after the double play, “You’re a badass, man.” Dollander left the contest feeling he had momentum.
“You take the good, take the bad, but I made some really good adjustments today, and I’m looking forward to bringing [them] into my bullpen and my next start,” he said.