Freeland bounces back in 'encouraging' start

Amid a funk, left-hander Kyle Freeland said several days ago that sometimes “you have to be your best critic” and remember that "you can get back to where you want to be.”

For six innings in the Rockies’ 2-1 defeat to the Mariners at T-Mobile Park on Tuesday night, Freeland displayed the grit and stuff that propelled him to fourth place in National League Cy Young voting in 2018.

Freeland battled against the Mariners, allowing just one run on five hits and one walk with seven strikeouts in a no-decision.

“This is definitely a step in the right direction for me,” Freeland said.

Mixing in all five of his pitches, he frustrated Seattle’s hitters, generating 10 swings and misses and an additional 18 called strikes. He generated whiffs mainly with his slider (eight) and curveball (two), while getting called strikes on each of his offerings.

The one run Freeland allowed came in a treacherous fifth inning in which three straight one-out singles, including a blooper to left field off the bat of Jake Fraley, led to a bases-loaded threat.

Freeland then struck out Shed Long Jr. swinging and allowed the run on a single by J.P. Crawford. However, the inning ended on a baserunning miscue by Dylan Moore that led to the final out, keeping Colorado firmly in the game.

“Fastball, curveball [and] slider were working great for me tonight,” Freeland said. “It was nice to have that feeling back of commanding the baseball and knowing I'm on top and staying through it, putting it in the spots that I want it to be. So it was very encouraging to see that and feel that, and get back to the way I like to pitch.”

Indeed it was a step in the right direction for Freeland, who has struggled to return to form since being reinstated from the 10-day IL in mid-May following a left shoulder strain. In his first five starts of '21, Freeland amassed a 9.58 ERA, having allowed 23 runs (22 earned) in 20 2/3 innings entering Tuesday.

“He's a good pitcher and he's gotten off to a slow start,” Mariners manager Scott Servais said. “Again, he is coming off an IL stint and he took a little while to get going. But I thought he was really sharp tonight. … He's a quality lefty, and we didn't do a lot of good stuff tonight.”

It’s the type of start that Rockies manager Bud Black hopes Freeland can build off.

“It was good tonight for Kyle, for sure,” Black said. “I think it showed the ability to bounce back after a couple of rough outings. Once the change becomes incorporated into his game, I think you'll see similar results to what you saw tonight. …. Hopefully, this will springboard him to some more outings like this one in the future.”

While many of Seattle’s hitters had no answer for Freeland, the same could be said for the Rockies against Mariners starter Chris Flexen. Seattle's right-hander stymied Colorado through 6 2/3 innings, allowing just four hits and one run.

That run came off the bat of C.J. Cron, who drilled a home run 402 feet to right field. It was his fourth homer in his last six games and 10th of the season, helping tie the game at 1 in the seventh. Brendan Rodgers followed Cron by hitting his first career triple, which knocked Flexen out of the game.

“It looked as though he was really effective on the outside part of the plate to our right-handed hitters, “ Black said of Flexen. “And then a little bit inside to the lefties. … There was a couple of walks in there, but, overall, it looked like he was moving the ball around the strike zone, and we just couldn't solve him.”

Long broke the tie in the eighth with a homer off Tyler Kinley, while the Mariners’ bullpen held the Rockies hitless through the game’s final 2 1/3 innings.

Raimel Tapia, who carried a 17-game hitting streak into Tuesday's game, made it 18 games with a sixth-inning single. It's the longest hitting streak by a Rockies player since Carlos González’s 19-game streak in 2016.