Kyle Freeland is in his 10th year pitching for the Rockies. He’s made 234 career starts, with exactly half of those coming at Coors Field. No one has taken the mound in LoDo more than the veteran left-hander.
For that, the Denver native deserves to be knighted. Or at least have a medal pinned to his No. 21 jersey.
So says former Rockies starter Aaron Cook, who toiled at Coors from 2002-11 and is second on the Coors Field list with 104 career starts.
“Hell yeah, he deserves a badge of honor,” Cook said while driving through Texas cattle country south of San Antonio. “I was there for the better part of 10 years, so for Kyle to do what he’s done? For that long? Hell yeah, he deserves a medal.”
Freeland, who turns 33 on May 14, is off to a strong start this season. Heading into his scheduled start on Sunday in San Diego, he’s 1-1 with a 2.30 ERA after three outings. Last Tuesday night, pitching on the ninth anniversary of his major league debut, Freeland allowed just one run on three hits over 6 1/3 innings.
Freeland carries battle scars from the toil and trouble of pitching in LoDo, but that’s not what he likes to talk about.
“I’m very proud of being with one organization for my entire career,” Freeland said. “One, that’s a feat in and of itself. Two, to do it in the hardest park in the majors is its own thing.”
Jason Jennings is the only Rockies player to win National League Rookie of the Year, doing so in 2002 at age 22. In that rookie season, the right-hander made 32 starts and finished 16-8 with a 4.52 ERA.
Jennings had his ups and downs in Colorado before he was traded to Houston after the 2006 season. But even in that final season with the Rockies, Jennings was an effective pitcher, making 32 starts, pitching a career-high 212 innings, and posting a 3.78 ERA.
Today, however, Jennings marvels at Freeland’s toughness and staying power.
“I don’t even think about the pitching aspect of Colorado,” he said. “You have to be so mentally and physically tough. It’s so hard on the mind, so hard to recover. And he has done it for so long.
“It’s a whole different animal. The grind of taking the ball every fifth day, surviving some really tough seasons, surviving Coors Field, it is really impressive. You don’t see many guys last 10 years in the league, let alone at Coors Field. Most guys, after four or five years, it is like, ‘Get me the heck out of here.’ ”
Cook, who spent a week at spring training this year working with Colorado’s minor league pitchers, said that baseball at altitude presents a plethora of problems for pitchers, including:
• Adjusting pitching sights at Coors Field after returning from a road trip. That is, adjusting their mental focus on a specific, small target, like a catcher’s mitt or shoulder, to guide their pitch movement and improve command.
• Realizing that there are going to be games at Coors when you’re going to get shelled, but also realizing that as long as you were one run better than the other guy, you’d done your job — inflated ERA be damned.
• Understanding that the huge outfield can turn a small-scoring inning into a blowout inning in a hurry.
However, Cook said it was the wear and tear, both physically and mentally, that was the hardest thing for him to deal with.
“Listen, I never said anything about Coors Field when I was playing there because I would never give merit to anything outside of my control,” he said. “But now that I’m 15 years removed from it, I can say, Coors Field is not an easy place to pitch. Period.
“But, for me, the hardest part, really, was the recovery. If I had to make two starts on the same homestand, I felt like I had made two starts in three days. It wasn’t just my arm or my legs; it was my whole body. Full fatigue. The mental part fatigues you, too. It just drains you, drains you, drains you.”
Former Rockies general manager Dan O’Dowd struggled every year trying to figure out how to make starting pitchers effective — and keep them healthy.
“We have found that every starter who has pitched here for 185 to 200 innings for three consecutive years over the lifetime of this franchise has broken down with a significant injury,” O’Dowd told The Post in 2012. “That inability to keep pitchers healthy has been one of our biggest struggles. We have to find a way to change that.”
The current Rockies regime is giving it a go. Paul DePodesta (the new president of baseball operations), a slew of new pitching coaches and coordinators, and manager Warren Schaeffer, are trying to solve the issue by using several long relievers and employing occasional “openers” to start games. The club also plans to limit the number of times a starter takes the mound during a homestand.
“It’s not a hard plan, but if we can avoid (starting a pitcher) twice, we would like to,” Schaeffer said. “It all depends on our schedule and if the availability of the bullpen allows it. All the numbers show a huge spike in ERA the second time. It just makes sense to try and avoid it.”
Freeland is in the final year of his contract, with a vesting player option. Veteran right-hander Antonio Senzatela, who is now a reliever after struggling as a starter last season, is also in the final year of his contract. Like Freeland, Senzatela made his major league debut in 2017, but injuries (a torn ACL, Tommy John surgery) have limited Senzatela to 145 career starts.
“Speaking for myself and ‘Senza,’ this place isn’t easy, and it can break you down,” Freeland said. “But it shows the kind of people and pitchers that we are, that we are willing to take on that brute force and try to win games here in Colorado.”
Freeland is making $16 million this season and can activate his $17 million option with Colorado for 2027 if he pitches 170 innings. He’s pitched at least 170 innings twice, in 2018 (202 1/3) and in 2022 (174 2/3), but he came close in 2025 (162 2/3).
Though Freeland’s best season was in ’18, when he went 17-7 with a 2.85 ERA for Colorado’s last playoff team, he says he’s better equipped now to endure the rigors of Coors Field.
“One thing I learned when I was younger, from veterans like Tyler Chatwood, is that you have to take care of your body,” Freeland said. “You have to listen to your body. Get in the training room. If something is bugging you, take care of it right away. Because in Colorado, things are going to spiral a lot faster with injuries than they would at sea level. Injuries are worse here, too.”
Now, it’s the young guns like right-hander Chase Dollander who come to Freeland for survival tips.
“Guys ask me all the time, ‘What are the secrets to pitching in Colorado?’ ” Freeland said. “I say, ‘Sleep and drink as much water as you possibly can.’ Those are the two things that you have to take care of.”
Freeland wears his 117 Coors Field starts like a badge of honor, but that’s not what he celebrates most.
“Being here — for 10 years — is the thing I’m most proud of,” he said. “Being able to do it with my hometown team, and to stay with one team — something very rare in this age — that makes me so proud.
“I mean, looking back, 10-year-old Kyle would say that there is no chance. It’s the coolest thing for me to say that I spent 10 seasons with the Colorado Rockies, the team that I grew up with. This team was born in 1993, the same year that I was born.
“I got to know two Rockies Hall of Famers — Larry Walker and Todd Helton. I would say that’s all pretty cool.”
