Jason Jennings had just allowed one hit in six innings in his second start for the Asheville Tourists of the South Atlantic League when I talked with him on the field after a 1999 game in tiny Hickory, N.C.
He was only a few weeks removed from being the consensus college player of the year as a Baylor junior. He got a $1.6 million signing bonus from the Rockies and soon set up his air mattress on the floor of the Asheville apartment he shared with, among others, Tourists teammates Matt Holliday and Choo Freeman.
That day in Hickory, Jennings said he had “heard the bad stories about pitching in Denver and how hard it is for a pitcher. I’m kind of a sinker, slider pitcher. And normally when I’m on, I keep the ball on the ground. I hope that’s going to play to my benefit if I ever get there.”
Jennings, the tough-luck loser when the Dodgers beat the Rockies 3-2 on Wednesday afternoon at Coors Field, has been “here” since late in the 2001 season.
“I knew what I was getting into,” Jennings said after the game. “You just have to take the mind-set of trying to get into the seventh inning of every game, (give up) three or four runs, and usually that’s good enough to win here.”
Jennings’ long-term and ongoing determination to make the best of pitching at altitude without moaning, surrendering or maneuvering to make the Rockies deal him are what make him so easy to root for. I say that, assuming I can speak for a lot of us who had gotten sick of the watching many Rockies pitchers give in and stop caring about much beyond making sure the checks didn’t bounce – and that they would be traded, ASAP.
Anybody who fought through it has been a changeup.
In 1999 especially, Pedro Astacio showed a Rockies starter could pull it off, forgetting bad innings, continuing to fight, not worrying about his ERA, and just doing his job.
Jennings declined to give in to the ready-made excuses, too, and not just in winning the National League’s rookie of the year award in 2002. The increasing influence of the Rockies’ humidor doesn’t significantly dilute that accomplishment, primarily because there are a lot of pitchers who wore Colorado uniforms in the past who would have found other excuses even if the baseballs were cooked, baked, soaked or anything else until they were as dead as when “Home Run” Baker walloped that eye-popping and league-leading total of 11 in 1911.
Colorado has three homegrown starters in the rotation – Jennings, now a disappointing 2-4 for the season, Jeff Francis and Aaron Cook. The humidor has to a large extent normalized the game at Coors, though the word often doesn’t seem to have gotten around, because we still hear national or highlight-show discussions that perpetuate the notion that every ball in the air in Denver is destined for either the gaps or the seats. But while it’s easier to pitch here – if only relatively speaking – the point is Jennings didn’t cower in Coors from the start.
That said, the standards are changing. The Rockies are having trouble scoring runs at home. The per-game runs and home runs both are on a downturn, which is good news if you hope to watch an entire night game and be home by midnight.
“People are making a huge deal of the humidor and this and that,” Jennings said. “I don’t know what it is. Maybe we’re pitching better.”
Maybe it’s that, too. Regardless, though, an outing like Jennings had Wednesday against the Dodgers – when he was charged with three runs in 6 2/3 innings – no longer is Herculean.
“It was a tough one today,” Jennings said.
Actually, all three of those runs charged to Jennings should have been unearned, but third baseman Garrett Atkins wasn’t charged with an error when Ramon Martinez’s grounder got past him. Eventually Nomar Garciaparra’s bases-loaded, two-out single through the left side broke a 1-1 tie, and it was especially painful because it came on an 0-2 pitch.
Was he second-guessing himself?
“No second-guessing a groundball,” Jennings said.
Jennings is making $4.4 million this season, and the Rockies have every right to expect more out of him than they’re getting. Yet in light of the alibi-ridden failures of many past big-ticket Rockies pitchers, his professionalism and perseverance can be as admirable as a slider on the black.
Staff writer Terry Frei can be reached at 303-820-1895 or tfrei@denverpost.com.
