Rockies veteran left-hander Jorge De La Rosa has pitched poorly in his first two starts of the 2016 season.
(Lisa Blumenfeld, Getty Images)
What’s wrong with Jorge De La Rosa?
It’s a fair question, considering the Rockies’ veteran left-hander will enter his Thursday start against the Giants with an 0-1 record and 12.46 ERA after his first two games.
He failed to survive five innings in either one of his first two starts, and he has already issued seven walks and teed up four homers. Plus, his fastball velocity is down a bit. In the first two games, it’s averaged 90.3 mph, vs. 91.4 mph last season and 92.6 for his career.
But Rockies pitching coach Steve Foster sounds unconcerned.
“Velocity is very important,” he said Wednesday before the Rockies hosted the Giants at Coors Field. “It’s also something that we’re used to in April in cold-weather states — cooler nights, it’s not alarming. (But) it’s something that we’ll be keeping an eye on. And he says he’s healthy. He had a good spring.”
De La Rosa is a notoriously slow starter, as MLB.com’s Thomas Harding pointed out in
In 2013, De La Rosa went 2-3 with a 4.18 ERA in six April starts, but was then lights out, posting ERAs of 2.08, 2.97 and 3.62 over next three months, with a combined record of 8-2.
In 2014, he was 2-3 with a 5.23 ERA in March and April. The year started with a rough Opening Day start, when he gave up five runs in 4 1/3 innings in a road loss to the Marlins. He followed with a 4-0 record and a 1.93 ERA in May. He slumped in June, when he was 2-3 with a 7.11 ERA. But he went 3-0 with a 2.30 ERA in July.
De La Rosa’s start to last season was delayed by a groin issue, and he posted an 11.57 ERA in two April starts. But he went 1-1 with a 4.79 ERA in May and 4-1 with a 3.16 ERA in June.
Foster understands that some pitchers are slow to heat up, but he doesn’t want to make too big a deal out of it.
“You really don’t want to put a lot of stock in that because as a coach you don’t want a guy mentally thinking that,” he said. “However, history shows us that some guys are just slow starters and that’s the reality of it.
“It’s not an excuse, though, nor do we ever look it as that. Throughout the history of baseball there have been guys perennially started slower in April. My hope is that ‘De La’ is not one of those guys.”
