Dollander has goal in mind for return from IL

MIAMI -- Rockies rookie Chase Dollander said he will come off the 15-day injured list on Tuesday night to face the Marlins, and the right-hander will try to apply the lesson he derived from the right forearm tightness that caused him to miss time.

Dollander felt cramping in the forearm during a 38-pitch first inning in his last start on May 18 -- when he finished with 98 pitches in 4 2/3 innings but held the Diamondbacks to one run. The inning was odd. He struck out three but walked two and gave up a Ketel Marte home run on a 1-2 pitch.

“I think that was just a freak thing that happened -- I don’t know why I cramped, never experienced that before,” said Dollander, ranked by MLB Pipeline as the No. 1 Rockies prospect and No. 22 overall. “So in my opinion, that’s probably due to all the pitches I threw in that first inning.

“I got through it pretty good, only to give up one run. But it’s just a matter of getting guys out earlier.”

Dollander, 23, is among the younger Rockies who are learning, although he has had lessons that weren’t the hard kind. Half of his eight starts have seen him give up two or fewer runs. The others are the reason he has a 6.28 ERA. But Dollander has displayed enough aptitude that the Rockies feel that selecting him with a first-round pick (ninth overall) in 2023 will pay off.

“He’s developing nicely,” said manager Warren Schaeffer, whose club will have to activate Dollander and make a corresponding 26-man roster move before Tuesday’s start. “I can’t say enough about Chase Dollander, the way he takes care of himself, his thought process, the way he talks about the game after it happens, and sees where he went wrong and what went right.”

The injury could have been a chain reaction that started innocently. On April 30, Dollander held the Braves to one run and two hits in 5 2/3 innings while outdueling 2024 Cy Young Award winner Chris Sale in a 2-1 victory at Coors Field. But Dollander left that one with a cracked nail on his right middle finger.

General manager Bill Schmidt said, from talking to head athletic trainer Keith Dugger, that Dollander digs the fingernail in on the curve, and it’s possible that modifying his technique had something to do with the forearm cramp at Arizona. While Dollander kept telling the Rockies he was OK, Schmidt said the team placed him on the IL to make sure.

“We’re always going to do what’s right for the player and not put him in harm’s way,” Schmidt said. “Now he feels good. It felt good shortly afterward, but we were in a position that taking a breather was good, long term for him.”

Dollander’s 8.8 strikeouts per nine innings is by far the highest rate among Rockies rotation members. Dollander’s ability to put away hitters -- 16 strikeouts on fastball, 16 on his curve and six on his changeup -- is a departure from the pitch-to-contact hurlers that have largely populated the rotation through the club’s history.

Strikeouts can be too much of a good thing if chasing them drives up the pitch count unnecessarily. But strikeouts achieved with the right mindset are always good in Dollander’s mind.

“Where the game’s at right now, strikeouts are what you want,” Dollander said. “So it’s a fine line. For me, it’s, ‘Let’s get ahead.’ If they put the ball in play, they put the ball in play. But if you get to two strikes and can put them away, let’s put them away. And if you don’t get the strikeout, all right, get soft contact.

“If you get ahead of people, you have a good chance of striking them out. And the further you are ahead, the lower the batting average. Focus on getting ahead. Focus on one pitch at a time. That’s where you need to be. If you get too far ahead of yourself, you’re going to be trying to throw one, two, three pitches at the same time. You can’t do that.”