Colorado Rockies: A conversation with Brooks Pounders

It was announced earlier today that the Colorado Rockies were making a roster move by sending reliver Scott Oberg down to Triple-A Albuquerque, designating pitcher Zach Jemiola for assignment, and calling reliever Brooks Pounders up from Albuquerque.

Brooks Pounders was called up today by the Colorado Rockies to join their bullpen as a part of a trio of corresponding roster moves. Pounders has spent parts of the last two seasons in the major leagues with the Kansas City Royals and Los Angeles Angels.

Pounders is available for today’;s game so, before today’s game, he spoke with media, including our own Kevin Henry and Jake Shapiro, at Coors Field and here’s what he had to say about getting back to the major leagues.

“Going into this [past] offseason, I was looking for the best opportunity to play in the big leagues, and I think I found it and I’m really excited to be here and ready to win,” Pounders said.

Pounders signed with the Rockies this offseason on a minor league contract with an invite to the Rockies’ major league spring training camp. During spring training and in his three weeks or so in the minor leagues with the Rockies, he has already learned some stuff that he hopes will help him be successful at the major league level.

“I think it’s just staying within myself, making pitches when I need to…and basically, going with what got me here, sticking with what works, and not trying to do too much,” said Pounders.

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He also has been refining his pitches, as he has three of them but one is go to pitch.

“I mix in a slider with a four-seam and two-seam fastball. [The] slider is my out pitch and I go to it a lot. It gets me back into counts and it’s also a put away pitch for me,” said Pounders.

It remains to be seen whether or not Pounders stint in the major leagues will be only be short-term or long term but he has pitched well thus far in Triple-A Albuquerque and the Pacific Coast League this season, a notorious hitters league.

He has pitched 10 innings with an ERA of 3.60 while allowing nine hits, four runs (all earned), four walks, and nine strikeouts. This is much better than his experience in the major leagues, as with the Kansas City Royals and Los Angeles Angels in 2016 and 2017, in 24 games, he had an ERA of 9.78 while allowing 36 hits in only 23 innings of work as well as 10 homers. However, one good stat for him is that in that span, he averaged nearly 10 strikeouts per nine innings.

Next: Looking at some of the best and worst trades from the Dan O'Dowd era

Stay tuned for more updates from Coors Field, for both more info on the roster moves as well as the weather both here and on Twitter @RoxPileFS and with Jake Shapiro, @Shapalicious.