Colorado Rockies: Jon Gray on his Wednesday spring start

Although the Colorado Rockies lost on Wednesday to the Los Angeles Angels by a score of 6-5, Rockies starting pitcher Jon Gray made his 3rd start of spring and it was his longest and, perhaps, best start thus far.

Rockies starting pitcher Jon Gray made his third start of spring training on Wednesday and he pitched four shutout innings while striking out five and only allowing one hit.

Combined in his three starts on the spring, Gray has worked nine innings (2 in his first start, 3 in the second, and 4 in the third) and he has only allowed two hits, a run (that was earned), one hit batter, one walk, and 10 strikeouts.

After his outing on Wednesday, Gray spoke to the media about his start and his spring thus far (with a h/t to the Rockies P/R team for the quotes).

Gray said that he felt like he accomplished everything that he wanted to accomplish in the start. One of the things he wanted to do was work out of the stretch and fortunately for him, the hit that he allowed was to the leadoff man for the game, David Fletcher, so he said that he was “glad that happened.”

However, he only threw one pitch out of the stretch as Angels outfielder Kole Calhoun grounded into a 4-6-3 double play on the first pitch he saw.

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To end the first inning, former Rockies catcher Jonathan Lucroy lined out to Nolan Arenado at third base on a great play. Gray said that it was “awesome” to see.

"Gray added that “[w]henever you first hear a sound like that, [you think] ‘oh great, a guy got a hit’ but not with him. I heard the snap of the glove instead. It was nice.”"

Overall, he said that he thought that he had his “B- or C stuff today” because he “wasn’t commanding very sharply but we were pounding the zone…” He recorded strikeouts on his fastball, slider, and curveball and he said that incorporating all of his pitches and use them at any time to throw strike is something that “I need to be able to do in a regular season game.”

To get from a “B- or C” to an A, he said that he needs to fix some of his mechanics.

"“I was [throwing] a little bit across my body on my fastball and slider and that kind of sharpened up as the game went on. The more I was aware of it, the more I was able to fix it.”"

He also said that he has simplified his mechanics a decent amount this offseason and spring by just “not thinking about it at all.” He also said that he thinks that is part of the reason for his struggles in 2018 but it is also partially because he said that he didn’t know what he’d have working on a regular basis.

"“I [didn’t] know why my stuff wasn’t working [and] I didn’t know what to do but now, I understand why it works. If there is a problem, I can go straight to it and fix it. I feel like I’m in a way better spot [now compared to 2018],” said Gray."

He said he also got his delivery down to 1.3 seconds, which is something that he liked as the shorter a delivery is, then the baserunners have less of a chance to steal bases.

Hopefully, Gray can continue his success in spring training and into the regular season and turn the page on his troublesome 2018 season.