Colorado Rockies: Why Anderson, De La Rosa are Starting

The starting rotation for the Colorado Rockies underwent a significant change on Sunday. All went well in Tyler Anderson’s start that day. Tuesday night will determine if the Rockies have as much success with inserting Jorge De La Rosa back into the starting lineup.

Anderson made a big impact in his MLB debut, allowing just one run and six hits over 6.1 innings in a 2-1 victory over the San Diego Padres. On Tuesday, Walt Weiss said there was never a second thought about Anderson working a relief role to get rid of any butterflies that might come with his first big league appearance.

“We gave Tyler the start the other day because he’s never come out of the bullpen,” Weiss said. “He’s never done it. To have to do it at this level makes it tough, so we wanted to give him a start and see what he looked like. That was part of it.”

Now the Rockies will see if De La Rosa can exhibit the same flair in a Tuesday start against the New York Yankees that he showed in his last outing of the bullpen. In his third relief appearance of the season after being moved out of the rotation, the all-time leader in wins for the Colorado Rockies threw four scoreless innings in a June 9 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The solid outing was enough to show Weiss that De La Rosa was ready to start again.

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“With De La Rosa, we feel like he’s in a good place right now and doing a lot of things we talked about and made some adjustments,” Weiss said. “He’s looked very good throwing the ball. He was also a little out of his element coming out of the bullpen. That’s not something he’s accustomed to doing. He hasn’t done a lot of it. He’s done it a couple of times and been very successful for us. There are a lot of factors we talked about.”

Anderson and De La Rosa being in the rotation means that someone had to fall out, and that for the moment is Eddie Butler, who has been moved to the long relief role with Christian Bergman still on the disabled list.

Weiss said that Butler has shown he can thrive in the new role.

“I think he sprints well,” Weiss said, referring to Butler pitching in short bursts. “We’ve seen a few times where he comes in and throws a couple of innings and he’s handled that role very well.”

How long these changes last remain to be seen. Prior to Tuesday’s game, Weiss cautioned against anyone getting too comfortable with their roles.

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“As we sit here now, that’s how we stand,” Weiss said. “Things change pretty much daily around here. That’s not something where we say, ‘You’re a bullpen guy now.’ That’s not the case. It is how it is as we sit here today.”