DENVER -- Rockies right-hander Jon Gray hates needles, but not as much as injury-affected performance.

Gray, who avoided arbitration by reaching a one-year, $6 million agreement with Colorado before Friday’s deadline for exchanging figures, has turned to acupuncture to disrupt a maddening injury pattern. Last season, Gray went 2-4 with a 6.69 ERA in eight starts before being shut down with right shoulder inflammation/an impingement in his shoulder.

After the Rockies shut Gray down, he underwent a full physical assessment at the behest of the club and his agent, Jeff Berry. Unveiled was a surprising relation between his right shoulder and several injuries to his left (landing) foot. He has experienced a sore left big toe that interrupted his 2017 Spring Training, a stress fracture in the foot that cost him 2 1/2 months in '17 and another stress fracture that ended a strong '19 (11-8, 3.84 ERA in 26 games) and required surgery.

In addition to performing shoulder exercises using bands and light weights, plus doing overall body strengthening at his home gym in Scottsdale, Ariz., Gray is seeing two different acupuncturists for treatment and maintenance.

“It would have never even occurred to me to check something like that out,” Gray said, his voice revealing amazement that the needle treatment could fix the threat between shoulder and foot. “But it’s something that was also making it tough on my body to get right week after week.

“I didn’t want to mess around with needles. I don’t like needles at all. But after doing it for the first time and just trying to get to the bottom of it, I saw how well it worked. Just keeping at it has been a great thing for me.”

Gray said the treatments strategically hit more body parts than he could ever imagine -- “like a belt” around his hips, his right shoulder and biceps, his right foot, his left ankle and both shins. Fixing the underlying causes and zeroing in on proper exercises and exercise techniques are being used to break the patterns that led to injuries in both places.

Don’t underrate the stress that an unwell 2020 dumped upon Gray.

It seemed everything was coming together. Gray was the Opening Day starter in 2017 and '18, and thought to be the rotation’s leader from 2016-18. But inconsistency marred his ’18. He went 12-9, but he had a 5.12 ERA and his inconsistency led to him being left off Colorado's National League Division Series roster. But a thorough self-examination led Gray to embrace sports psychology, adopt more explosive movements in his workouts and increase his food intake.

The result was a 2019 in which he had 150 strikeouts in 150 innings, while showing a high-velocity fastball and one of the better sliders in the sport. He became the first pitcher in club history to earn 10 or more wins in four straight seasons.

Through 2020 Spring Training -- and during Summer Camp after the shutdown -- Gray felt ready to build upon a successful year. But when the season came, his arm lagged.

“When I knew I needed to kick it into the next gear and start increasing my velocity and my workload, that’s when I noticed things didn’t really feel like normal,” Gray said. “I couldn’t really reach back and get that little bit extra.”

Gray’s four-seam fastball average dipped 2 mph, down to 94 mph. Just once, when he held the D-backs to one run on three hits in six innings of an Aug. 26 road win, did he feel “OK, and show a little bit of what I can do.”

While trying to force fastball velocity through growing pain and tightness, Gray ended up using his slider less (33.5 percent in ’19, 29.2 percent in '20). When he used the slider, he couldn’t find the arm and hand speed to make it effective. He thought it would improve with time. But the low point -- nine hits, including two long homers, and seven runs allowed in 2 2/3 innings of a 23-5 home loss to the Giants -- was the last time he pitched.

“It was very tough to be at the field, very tough to be around everyone, and I felt like the negative energy around everyone,” Gray said.

Gray is full of the right kind of energy headed into his contract year.

The financial hit the Rockies took from playing a season without in-stadium fan revenue led to speculation that Gray could be non-tendered to reduce payroll. General manager Jeff Bridich personally called Gray to assure him he was part of the plan.

The Rockies struggled to their second straight fourth-place finish in the NL West. However, righty German Márquez and lefty Kyle Freeland each fashioned nine quality starts. Righty Antonio Senzatela added six quality starts and was by some statistical measures the team’s best starter. Gray managed three quality starts through his issues.

In 2019, Gray and Márquez were leaders of a rotation that otherwise struggled. In ’20, the front of the rotation was the strength of the team, but the weaknesses were the bullpen, the rotation depth and (unfathomably, given the hitter-friendly nature of Coors Field) the offense.

Gray has now brushed all negativity off his often-potent throwing shoulder.

Rox go 11-for-11 avoiding arbitration
The Rockies beat Friday’s arbitration deadline by reaching one-year agreements with Gray, Freeland ($5.025 million), infielder Ryan McMahon ($2.375 million), outfielder Raimel Tapia ($1.95 million) and right-handed relief pitchers Carlos Estévez ($1.45 million) and Robert Stephenson ($805,000).

Add to them one-year agreements for Senzatela ($3 million); righty relievers Mychal Givens ($4.05 million), Daniel Bard ($2.925 million) and Jairo Díaz ($1.1 million); and catcher Elias Díaz ($1.2 million with $300,000 available via incentives), and the Rockies have avoided arbitration with all 11 eligible players.

Teams and players can continue negotiating toward multi-year deals if desired.