A perfectly pinpointed inside fastball foretold what Brennan Bernardino could become.
was a senior at Valencia High School in southern California and was pitching in practice against a college player. At that point, Bernardino had only recently rejoined Valencia’s program — which he had previously quit twice — after getting into trouble that led to him being kicked off the school’s basketball team.
But when Bernardino threw that heater up-and-in, causing a late swing and a shattered bat, the sawed-off moment was an omen.
“When that bat broke, I looked at my coach next to me and went, ‘Wow,'” recalled , Bernardino’s high school coach. “That is a very rare occurrence for a high school pitcher to do that against a college hitter. But that showed us: Brennan could locate any pitch. He didn’t miss middle. He did not try to throw the ball by you. He pitched. He was a thinker. He understood how to go east and west, north and south.
“That moment also changed his confidence coming back from quitting, because I think he then realized, ‘Damn, I’m pretty good.’ Just that one moment erased the doubts and gave him the confidence to pursue his baseball dream. That one pitch changed a lot of things for him.”
This season, the southpaw has been the Rockies’ best reliever after Colorado acquired him via an offseason trade with Boston for outfield prospect Braiden Ward. In a career year, the 34-year-old journeyman has a 2.82 ERA and 1.5 bWAR in 59 games entering the weekend.
The winding road to a dominant season in the Rockies’ bullpen probably wouldn’t have been paved without Snyder changing his mind when Bernardino walked into the coach’s office and asked to rejoin the team 16 years ago.
Snyder granted Bernardino’s request, but with an array of stipulations.
He had to keep his grades up. He couldn’t get into trouble outside of school anymore, and he had to stay away from the peers he hung out with, which ultimately led to his being dismissed from the basketball team. He had to do field work to prove he really wanted to be back on the baseball team. And he was going to have to earn his spot in the rotation during the season, even though Snyder knew Bernardino was his clear No. 1 starter.
“He got kicked off the basketball team for some knucklehead stuff, because every kid makes mistakes,” Snyder said. “But I also remember that when he got kicked off that team, I hoped he’d come back to our program. I do believe kids deserve second chances and especially second chances when you know what the potential is of that kid and what he could possibly do at the next level.
“That moment was a fork in the road for a kid like Brennan. You either go left or you go right. Right takes you down the wrong path, with the wrong crowd. Maybe that left turn takes you down to where you can get your life in order. I felt baseball was the path that could get his life in order. I hoped it would be, and obviously it did.”
Significant velocity jump
Bernardino says he looks back on that time in his life and “wouldn’t change a thing.”
“There’s some lessons I needed to learn,” Bernardino said. “God has a different journey for everybody, and that was mine.”
Little did he know at the time that journey would take him to multiple junior colleges, Division II, , independent league ball, and all across the globe to prove himself on the mound before he finally made his big-league debut in 2022.
Bernardino wasn’t recruited out of high school, so he went to College of the Canyons, a few minutes down the road from his high school. He made the team as a walk-on, but coaches wanted him to redshirt, and Bernardino wanted to play right away. His next stop was Los Angeles Mission College, where he again walked on.
He gained traction in two seasons there, while also adding significant velocity that took him from the low-80s to 90 mph in a single day after working with
“I flew him out to Arizona to work with Dick Mills in Scottsdale,” Bernardino’s dad, Danny Bernardino, said. “At the time, I was reading all of his articles and analysis on pitching. And I really liked what I was reading. But he was like something like $1,400 for one lesson, for three hours. It was the best money I’ve ever spent my life. Brennan came back (to California) and he had picked up about 6 or 7 miles per hour.”
Bernardino was an all-league selection in his second season at Los Angeles Mission College, but he was pitching hurt. He transferred to Division II , and platelet-rich plasma injections in his ailing shoulder weren’t helping. He continued to pitch in the fall of 2012 at Dominguez Hills, before Toros head coach Murphy Su’a finally ordered the pitcher to get imaging of his left shoulder.
That revealed tears in his shoulder, where the labrum had detached from the bone.
“That’s how badly he wanted (this MLB dream),” Danny Bernardino said. “And that goes to show why he never gave up afterwards, too.”
After redshirting in 2013, Bernardino emerged as CSU Dominguez Hills’ ace in ’14. But Su’a was careful in building him back up on the mound, and Bernardino was usually on a pitch count. One game late in the season against another prominent Division II program, Su’a pulled Bernardino in the seventh inning, even though the score was close and he was pitching well.
Bernardino reacted by slamming his glove in the dugout.
“I shared with him my thoughts, not so kindly, on why I made the decision to pull him,” Su’a recalled with a laugh. “And I mentioned to him, in front of the whole dugout, ‘You’re the only guy in this dugout right here that has a potential pro career. We can either relieve you right now, or I can send you out there and you can finish the entire game because we’re not coming after you.’
“That’s the kind of competitor that he is. He apologized to me. He’s a humble guy, but boy, you put him on the field, it’s like, just watch out and get out of his way.”
Bluffing way back into pro ball
That fire would come in handy in the years that followed, when Bernardino faced many moments where quitting the game would’ve been the much easier and more realistic option over continuing to pursue his MLB dream.
The left-hander was drafted at No. 785 overall by the Reds in 2014 and spent five years in the Cincinnati organization, reaching as high as Double-A. When the Reds released him in 2018, Bernardino refused to give up.
He spent the rest of that season with the Winnipeg Goldeneyes in the , and then pitched in the Venezuelan Winter League. When 2019 spring training rolled around, he was living in Arizona, and without a job.
So Bernardino took matters into his own hands. He went to various spring training complexes around the Phoenix area and tried to bluff his way in the door to get in front of a decision-maker, telling people at each complex that he was a player in that organization.
The ruse finally worked at Cleveland’s Goodyear facility, where an unsuspecting receptionist led him to the Guardians’ farm director, James Harris. Once in Harris’ office, Bernardino set his white lie straight.
The pitcher told Harris, “I am a player, just not for you guys yet,” and Harris replied that he would do some research and might call him later that night.
The next day, Bernardino threw a bullpen session at the facility and the Guardians signed him to a minor-league contract. But he only pitched in five games for the organization in ’19 before Cleveland shipped him to Toros de Tijuana in the Mexican League.
Bernardino then spent the next three years grinding to get another chance at affiliated baseball. Along the way, he developed a sidearm delivery. His break came in 2022, when an agent saw him pitching in the Caribbean Series. He pitched in the Mexican League All-Star Game on June 18 of that season, and eight days later, the Mariners signed him to a minor-league contract. On July 31, 2022, he made his MLB debut.
Bernardino only appeared in two games for Seattle, which designated him for assignment in April 2023. Boston claimed him off waivers, and he emerged as a key piece of the Red Sox bullpen over the next three seasons, posting a 3.46 ERA with 157 strikeouts in 167 games.
“Last year I was not the main lefty in the (Red Sox) ‘pen,” Bernardino said. “The year before that, for some time I was, and the year before that, for some time I was for most of the season. But I ended up losing that role. So it’s a good feeling to get that role back this year here in Colorado.”
Weak contact at Coors Field
Bernardino’s pitching in Boston led to his “Moneyball” moment when Colorado dealt for him last November, the first trade of Rockies president of baseball operations Paul DePodesta’s tenure.
Maybe it didn’t have quite the drama of when Billy Beane (played by Brad Pitt) and Peter Brand (the character based off DePodesta that was played by Jonah Hill) wheeled-and-dealed at the trade deadline to acquire a southpaw reliever in Ricardo Rincón, but the phone call from the real Peter Brand hit home for Bernardino.
For the first time in his career, Bernardino was not just a big-leaguer, but a big-leaguer worth trading for.
“(Paul) called me and just told me, ‘You know, you’re my first move,'” Bernardino said. “And it was a good feeling to be his first move. Of course I’ve seen the movie, but also just knowing the entirety of his career and how he (thinks about the game). …. Hearing that, it was kind of like, ‘OK, wow.’ It made me feel a little bit special.”
Amid his success this season, Bernardino has made up for a lack of heat with his funky arm slot, pitch location, and sequencing. His average fastball velocity is just 90.2 mph, which ranks in the But with a varied pitch mix that pounds the strike zone and mostly features a sinker, curve and cutter, Bernardino has been sensational, especially at Coors Field where he has a 2.22 ERA in 28 games.
Bernardino’s signature has been weak contact. He ranks in the 78th percentile in barrel rate (5.7%), the 85th percentile in average exit velocity (87 mph) and the 89th percentile in hard-hit percentage (32.1%). His curveball has been his most effective pitch, as opponents are batting just .151 against it.
All of which begs the questions: Will Bernardino be part of the next competitive Rockies team? Can he keep pitching well enough in the future to justify the trade of Ward, gives him future big-league potential for Boston?
Bernardino’s performance has been a bargain this year with a $925,000 salary and he is under club control But he’s one of the oldest players on the roster and is the Rockies’ oldest reliever.
Su’a believes Bernardino’s age matters less than the average pitcher, given his limited high school innings as well as the injury that led to his pitch counts in college.
“I think he’s got a 26- to 28-year-old arm right now, because his arm is more healthy because he doesn’t have the volume and the wear-and-tear that other pitchers have had,” Su’a said. “And plus, he’s not throwing triple-digits, right? So there’s less (strain) there, even when he’s throwing his maximum.
“All that leads me to believe he’s still got a lot in the tank and a bunch of really good seasons still ahead of him.”
