Bard in camp, but mound work a ways away
SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ. -- The Rockies had some good news walk through the clubhouse door Wednesday at Salt River Fields.
Closer Daniel Bard returned to Spring Training camp. He was sporting a bandage wrapped around his left knee, where earlier this month he tore his meniscus in a freak injury while playing catch. Surgery followed.
Well aware that feeling OK walking around and feeling OK on the pitcher’s mound are two different things, the 38-year-old right-hander said he is recovering nicely.
“It feels good,” Bard said. “There’s no pain. It’s just swollen.”
Bard knows a thing or two about bouncing back. He was the 2020 NL Comeback Player of the Year after injuries and mechanical issues kept him out of the Majors for six years following a five-year run with the Red Sox.
In 2022, Bard had his best year with the Rockies, posting a career-high 34 saves and a 1.79 ERA.
He’s back in the building in Scottsdale, but the timetable for his return to the mound isn’t clear.
“I don’t think anybody knows,” Bard said. “It’s like how much can this [the knee] take so that I can get this [right shoulder] built up. That might be a few weeks.”
That will be the case for a while.
“You’re probably going to hear the same thing from me the next couple weeks at least with Daniel that there’s no timeframe,” Rockies manager Bud Black said. “Once a player gets on the mound and the catcher’s back there squatting at 60 feet and you’re throwing a bullpen, then you can talk timelines.”
With the Rockies’ Cactus League opener on Friday, evaluations continue when it comes to pinning down a starting rotation. Colorado’s regular season starts March 28 against the NL champion D-backs in Phoenix.
The Rockies’ struggles a year ago have been well chronicled, including their MLB-worst 5.91 ERA among starting pitchers. The 2024 season-opening rotation figures to begin with lefty Kyle Freeland, righty Cal Quantrill and lefty Austin Gomber.
Righties Dakota Hudson, Peter Lambert and Ryan Feltner are in the mix for the final two spots, along with righty Noah Davis and non-roster lefty Ty Blach.
Hudson had Tommy John surgery on his right elbow in 2020. Then, in 2022, he battled through a neck injury that caused him to alter his pitching motion. But those issues are behind him, and he feels at full strength again.
“I feel like I could have used a couple more weeks in the [2023] season to ride that feeling into the offseason to getting back to the basics and cleaning some things up,” Hudson said. “It’s been a good offseason.”
Lambert’s offseason goals were to add strength and to become more efficient with his pitches.
“That’s always the goal as a pitcher, especially a starting pitcher. Trying to go deep into games you want to be as efficient as possible,” Lambert said. “I think I’ve done a good job of that, and I’m doing really good and I’m ready to go.”
As practices and workouts turn to games, look for that unmistakable energy shift.
“Everything just gets intensified,” Lambert said. “Obviously, the game is going to be the highest level of intensity, and you’ve got to get as close to that as possible. It’s hard to replicate exactly that intensity without being in actual games.”
Lefty Carson Palmquist, the Rockies’ No. 21 prospect in the MLB Pipeline rankings, will get the call in the Rockies’ Cactus League opener Friday against the D-backs. The 23-year-old non-roster invitee was a 2022 third-round Draft pick out of the University of Miami and spent time at Double-A Hartford last season.