DENVER - Jon Gray had neither his best fastball, nor his best slider on Friday in his first ever start at Coors Field as a visitor.
What he did have, though, was perhaps his best confidence.
“That is everything,” Gray said after allowing a run on eight hits in six innings in the Rangers’ 4-2 loss to Colorado. “There was never a point out there where I wasn’t confident in what I had. I was always calm.”
Which isn’t always easy to do in Coors, where spin evaporates in thin air and baseballs tend to fly further. Gray knows this well, perhaps too well. He spent his first seven seasons in the majors with Colorado. His start Friday was his 75th at Coors.
Though Gray actually had the rarest of reverse splits while with the Rockies, having a better home ERA (4.54) than road (4.65), nobody is immune from Coors Field fever. It can lead to pitchers second-guessing themselves after balls carry to the hinterlands or after soft fly balls fall for hits because outfielders have to play so deep.
But Gray is in a run unlike many he’s had in his career. Simply put: He’s commanding the strike zone and lasting deep into games because of it. His start Friday was his third straight in which he went at least six innings, allowed one or no walks and, as a result, one or no runs.
He checked those boxes in a three-start stretch with the Rangers last May and into early June and once with Colorado in 2018. In the previous streaks, he allowed runs on homers. He’s now gone 36.1 consecutive innings without a homer. You don’t allow walks or homers, you aren’t going to beat yourself.
Even if your fastball is down a tick. It’s still plays well when he’s throwing it ahead in counts. He averaged 94 mph with it on Friday, down from his season average of 94.4 and about a mile down from 2023. But he’s getting ahead with it and it’s making his slider all the more effective.
“I feel better about everything,” said Gray. “I trust myself. I feel like I’m pitching like a power pitcher. This is the toughest place in the majors to pitch. And I wish I wouldn’t have beaten myself up as much as I did when I was here. Tonight, I didn’t do that. When the time came to make a good pitch, I felt like I trusted myself and I did it.”
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