Overhauled offseason has Freeland ready for ¡®24
Thomas Harding
@harding_at_mlbSCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- The need to rebound from his own spotty performance and the Rockies¡¯ 103-loss season in 2023 led left-handed starting pitcher Kyle Freeland to live, eat and sleep baseball.
And that¡¯s not just a figure of speech.
Freeland, selected for his third Opening Day start on Thursday against the D-backs at Chase Field, has looked like a different pitcher from last year, when he went 6-14 with a 5.03 ERA in 29 starts -- many of which saw him struggling through a dramatic drop in fastball velocity.
In the offseason, getting his old self back was a 24-hour mission.
¡°I definitely had a handful of changes this offseason,¡± Freeland said. ¡°It all started with trying to get my velocity back to where I want it to be. From there, it trickled down to making sure I¡¯m getting proper sleep, putting the right things in my body, making sure I was getting all my work throughout every single week in the offseason -- in the weight room working out with the guys, staying in communication with our trainers on how I was feeling and if we need to back off a little bit.¡±
Freeland heads into Friday¡¯s Spring Training start against the Rangers in Surprise, Ariz., with a 2-0 record and a 3.21 ERA this spring. He has 14 strikeouts and just one walk, all while his fastball is sitting in the 92-94 mph range -- well up from the upper 80s when it was at its slowest last season.
Freeland¡¯s peak was in 2018, when he went 17-7 with a 2.85 ERA, helped lift the Rockies into the postseason for the second straight year and finished fourth in NL Cy Young Award voting. There have been occasional surges since, but last season -- the second year of his five-year, $64.5 million contract -- alarmed Freeland into seeking ways to get back to his previous form.
A left shoulder strain landed Freeland on the injured list to start the 2021 season, and he acknowledged that, over time, shoulder maintenance waned -- partly because he did not always feel good.
The path back to effectiveness began late last season, when Freeland and Colorado¡¯s strength and conditioning coaches pinpointed muscles weaknesses that could be corrected as long as he adhered to his between-starts shoulder program. Freeland also took a changeup grip that he happened upon during a late-season throwing session and began using it in games.
Manager Bud Black recalled a meeting at season¡¯s end when each laid out an improvement plan.
¡°I talked about my thoughts on his changeup coming into play,¡± Black said. ¡°I didn¡¯t talk about velocity; he talked about that.¡±
Much of the offseason was simple work. The eating part? That was a joyous project for Freeland and his wife, Ashley.
¡°We enjoy cooking during the offseason,¡± Freeland said. ¡°I started supplementing a lot more red meat for myself. It helped out. I feel I got good weight. Weight has always been a problem, especially when we get into the season, where eating schedules get messed up. So I stayed focused on making sure that I¡¯m getting the proper foods into my diet.
¡°Then, getting the proper sleep at night [and] going into every single game is very key. I was able to get a good grasp of that this offseason.¡±
Now, Freeland wants to wake up and feast.