The morning after the Phillies crushed three misplaced changeups for home runs in a 7-0 Rockies defeat, Jorge De La Rosa was asked: “Have you moved beyond the point where one bad game, or a few bad pitches, throws you off track and into a slump?”
A thin smile crossed his lips as he contemplated the question.
“It used to be when I threw a bad game, I would think the next game would be bad too,” he said. “Now, I just go game to game. I forget about what happened the last time.”
The veracity of De La Rosa’s answer last Thursday will have a dramatic impact on the Rockies’ postseason aspirations.
He’ll be called on tonight to face the Cubs and give the Rockies an important 3-1 series victory. With Aaron Cook’s next start stubbed out because of a toe injury, the Rockies need De La Rosa to be consistent now more than ever.
During a remarkable summer run that transformed Colorado in to a wild-card contender, De La Rosa was a victory machine. From June 1 through Aug. 4, the left-hander’s nine wins were the most in the major leagues. A mid-90s four-seam fastball, a devastating slider, an effective changeup and a developing sinker gave him a nasty arsenal.
Then again, the 28-year-old from Nuevo Leon, Mexico, has always possessed Grade-A stuff. Harnessing it was another matter. The Brewers and Royals tried and failed. That led to the Royals trading De La Rosa — then on their Triple-A roster — to the Rockies on April 30, 2008.
The Rockies worked overtime with De La Rosa. In spring training, they paired him with mental-skills coach Ronn Svetich, who taught De La Rosa to breathe on the mound, and coaxed him to shrug off the bad pitch and the bad moment.
Pitching coach Bob Apodaca pushed De La Rosa, cajoling him and believing in him.
“I’m getting every indication Jorge will bounce back from his last game,” Apodaca said.
In his Philadelpia meltdown, De La Rosa allowed seven runs on 10 hits in five innings. It was a flashback to the beginning of the season, when De La Rosa was winless in his first 10 starts, going 0-6 with a 5.43 ERA.
But De La Rosa responded with an about-face of historic proportions. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, he became the first pitcher in major-league history to go winless with at least six losses through the end of May, then have at least nine wins and no more than one loss in June and July.
De La Rosa’s best friend on the team is fellow starter Ubaldo Jimenez, who is convinced his buddy is in a better place.
“I think it’s all about his mental game,” Jimenez said. “Every time he goes out there now, he thinks he has a chance to win. Before, it was more like he worried, ‘How am I going to do tonight?’ I think it’s because he learned more, and he’s gotten a little taste of success.”
De La Rosa’s biggest problem in Philadelphia was pitch selection and poor execution. His changeup was out of sorts because he failed to follow through with his delivery, and he kept throwing it.
“I hope he learned from that,” manager Jim Tracy said of De La Rosa. “He needs to recognize that there are going to be times when you go out there where your whole arsenal is not intact. That night, the changeup was being left up in the zone.”
Apodaca says that although De La Rosa’s motion gets too fast once in a while, De La Rosa’s biggest challenge remains gaining control of his emotions.
“During his winning streak, it wasn’t all perfect,” Apodaca said. “He gave up some crooked numbers. He had to battle in New York, but he rebounded. Now the building blocks are in place. . . . He’s slowly becoming the pitcher he’s capable of being.”
