DENVER -- Kyle Freeland figures that if he can extract a message from his and the Rockies’ struggles, others can, too.
Freeland posted a 6.41 ERA through his first eight starts of the season. An 11-hit, nine-run (five earned) loss to the Tigers on May 8 pushed him so low that he was near tears at the end of the postgame press conference. But Freeland is showing a bounceback quality that he hopes becomes contagious.
On Monday night, Freeland struck out six and held the National League East-leading Phillies to one run in 5 2/3 innings. As has been the case too many times, the game spiraled into a loss -- 9-3 at Coors Field.
Freeland -- who has managed two quality starts in his last four outings plus Monday’s game in which he left with a 2-1 lead -- hopes there is a message in his recent action. Freeland is living as if his personal bad beginning can be overcome and maybe it’ll rub off on the team. The Rockies’ 8-39 record is the worst 47-game beginning of the Modern Era and tied with the 1889 Louisville Colonels for fourth-worst ever, but composure and hard work are the way out of such history.
“There’s a little bit of that going on in this clubhouse -- we have a lot of young guys who are starting or playing every single day, and probably struggling a little bit with that pressure,” Freeland said. “It’s being a young guy up in the big leagues on a team that is not performing well and trying to do more than you should.
“You’ve got to make sure, as a veteran, you’re letting them know that we’re going to continue to work and we’re going to continue to get better. One game isn’t going to decide your entire career. It’s how you go about your work on a day-to-day basis, in a game. It’s about improving yourself, little by little.”
Freeland’s last two seasons, and last two starts, can be lessons.
Last year, Freeland struggled to a 13.21 ERA through four starts before going to the injured list with a left elbow strain, then posted a 3.96 ERA the rest of the way -- as the 61-101 Rockies went 11-6 in Freeland’s final 17 starts.
At Texas on Wednesday night, Freeland yielded three first-inning runs. This was on the heels of the anger and disappointment of the loss to the Tigers. It also was the Rockies’ second game since the club relieved Bud Black of his managerial duties. At inning’s end, Freeland stamped off the mound looking steamed enough that teammates avoided him.
But bench coach Clint Hurdle, always looking to bend a struggle into a positive, clapped his hands loudly to break Freeland’s pique. Freeland sat on the dugout bench. However, he didn’t sink.
Instead, he walked to the tunnel behind the dugout to study the inning and think clearly: The Rangers were attuned to Freeland’s tendency to attack the strike zone early and were teeing off on fastballs. Freeland switched to off-speed pitches early in counts, and didn’t give up a run for the rest of his time on the mound.
Expecting the Phillies to be every bit as aggressive, Freeland mixed from the start and opened everything. For put-away pitches, he used his sweeper once, his knuckle curve twice and his four-seam fastball another two times. He flummoxed the dangerous Kyle Schwarber -- whose left-on-left, ninth-inning homer off Scott Alexander caromed off the facing of the third deck -- on a curve that elicited a check-swing in the third, and a four-seamer that froze him in the fifth.
“The last outing, the first inning was a little rough, and then he settled in,” manager Warren Schaeffer said. “Tonight he was good to go from the first inning. I thought those were great adjustments he made today. He was extremely sharp pitching in on right-handers. He put the ball where he wanted.”
In the fourth year of a five-year, $64.5 million contract that also includes a club option for 2027, Freeland wants to be part of returning his hometown club to the postseason -- where it finished his first two seasons, 2017 and 2018. Toward that goal, Freeland is evolving. This season, through starts good and bad, Freeland has struck out 7.28 batters per nine innings -- well above his 6.75 per nine career rate.
“I’ll take an out, any way,” Freeland said. “If it’s a strikeout, lineout, groundout, I don’t care.”