Colorado Rockies morning after: Tyler Anderson has a good start

After back-to-back outings in which he struggled, Colorado Rockies starter Tyler Anderson was much improved on Tuesday’s 4-4 tie with the Milwaukee Brewers.

Prior to yesterday’s start against the Milwaukee Brewers, left-handed starter Tyler Anderson had not been able to get out of the fourth inning in any of his starts. In his last start, on March 15 against the Los Angeles Angels, he went 3 2/3 innings while allowing six hits, five runs (all earned), three walks, and three home runs. On March 10, he went 3 innings allowing five hits, four runs (only one earned) against Milwaukee.

However, this time out against Milwaukee, Anderson, who is currently slated to be number two in the Rockies rotation behind Jon Gray, was much better. He went five innings, allowing seven hits, two runs (both earned), one walk, and striking out five (he had only struck out two batters in all of spring training prior to yesterday).

"“It’s easy to get caught in the trap of early in spring just going out there and working on things,” said Anderson. “But as spring progresses and we get closer to games now, we’re going to be in real games here soon, and you want to make sure it’s now more compete mode. You’ve worked on what you needed to work on, and now it’s time to go compete with what you’ve got. Today was a much better example of that.” (h/t Chris Gabel of MLB.com)"

More from Rox Pile

• A Colorado Rockies Thanksgiving
• Colorado Rockies: What if Todd Helton had played football instead?
• Colorado Rockies: Charlie Blackmon out for the season
• Colorado Rockies: Injuries shift look of roster ahead of Dodgers series
• Colorado Rockies: Has Sean Bouchard earned a second look in 2023?

Bud Black said that, heading down the stretch of spring training, he expects to see some things from his starting pitchers. This was a game was one of the things he wanted to see.

"“That was a good game for him,” Black said. “He’d had a couple rough ones prior to today, so this is a good building block for him. I liked the first couple innings where he beat some bats with his fastball. We’ve seen that from Tyler when he’s at his best.”“That’s a plus any day, if you have runners on and you can kind of keep them at bay like that. They did a good job of getting guys on and creating traffic, so at that point, you have to battle, and if you end up with a strikeout, that’s the best-case scenario.” (h/t Gabel)"

Also, for the Brewers, their lineup was largely composed of the lineup that they will field on opening day and Anderson liked that.

"“I would prefer that,” Anderson said. “For me, that’s a big part of my game: Knowing who we’re going to face and how to pitch those guys. So today was a better example to being able to see guys and set up a real plan, as opposed to just going in and throwing things.” (h/t Gabel)"

Anderson also said that his success on Tuesday was partially due to the fact that he could locate his fastball better than he had in previous outings.

Final Thoughts

After an off day today, Chad Bettis will face the Oakland Athletics on Thursday at 2 PM MT. Last time he was on the mound in a Cactus League game, he faced the Arizona Diamondbacks on March 12 and he went five innings, allowing two runs (both earned), zero walks, and four strikeouts. Prior to that outing, he was roughed up a bit (8.31 ERA before March 12).

Next: Seven Bold Predictions for the NL West in 2018

Look for him to have a higher pitch limit (he only made 77 pitches on the 12th) and if he can be economically with the pitches, he should be able to get into the sixth or seventh inning.