Colorado Rockies: Should Kyle Freeland return to the Rockies as an opener?

Colorado Rockies pitcher Kyle Freeland is set to return from the injured list early next week while the team is in San Francisco.

The Colorado Rockies have suffered a lot of injuries in the past month or so and many of them, including Scott Oberg, German Marquez, and Jon Gray, have been season ending.

One of them that is not season ending, though, is Kyle Freeland. On Tuesday, he threw a 50-pitch simulated game and, overall, it went well for him.

He is slated to return sometime early next week while the team is in San Francisco (likely on Tuesday).

If he were to return on Tuesday, he would also be able to start on regular rest on Sunday, the final day of the season.

For both games, though, it may be best to use Freeland as an “opener.” Since the minor league season is over, he cannot go on a rehab assignment so his stamina will not be as good as it usually is.

On Tuesday, the Rockies bullpen will also be able to pitch a decent amount because they will have had a day off on Monday (plus they had a day off yesterday).

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Freeland could get his 50-60 pitches in (three innings to four innings) and then you can see how the Rockies bullpen, particularly the younger relievers, fare.

As the roster currently is without Freeland, the Rockies have 35 players, including 14 relievers. That includes nine relievers who entered 2019 with less than two years of MLB service time (Carlos Estevez and James Pazos exceeded two years of service time by less than one-third of a season entering 2019, as well).

With the amount of relievers that the Rockies have, by the time Tuesday rolls around, some of them may have gone a week or more without pitching in a game anyways. You can see what they’ve got and you can see what Freeland has as well.

Overall, it should be a win-win situation as you can hopefully see some development with some pitchers before the team looks to regroup in 2020.