04-05-24 Thomas Harding with Broncos Country Tonight

Episode Transcript

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Anyway, let's go to the KWAComsboro hotline and bring on Thomas Harding of

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MLB dot com. Thomas, howyou doing today? I feel good,
I feel clean that I'm enjoying thisearthquake talk. I'm not doing well.
You have never lived on an earthquake, no, but I lived in Memphis
for eleven years. I worked atthe paper there before coming out here,
what twenty five years ago to coverthe Rockies, and there was some guy
I don't know if he was ascientist or a huckster or what, but

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he was predicting that Memphis was goingto have the earthquake of the century because
it's it's not far from Jonesboro,it's right on a fault line. I
mean, it got to the pointto where it became a joke. We
had t shirts. It's not myfault, but the earthquake never came,
thank goodness. I just remember beingin buildings and they said, oh,
this is earth this is earthquake safe, and I would always ask, how

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did you test it? Oh mygoodness. Yeah, we probably have to
swap stories about Memphis some time.I used to get out there when I
live I lived just to the eastof little rock in a small town out
there, used to get the MEMPHISIat the time, get down at Alfred's,
you know, and then a coupleof joints down there saw aw Green
playing, you know, out thereon the streets. So good. Yeah,
we'll have to swap the stories aboutthat sometimes about this bit, yes,

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but let's talk about the story ofthe day right now. And that's
the Colorado Rockies winning the home openerin dramatic fashion. Ryan McMahon nearly throws
the game away and then comes backand totally redeems himself with the Grand Slam.
Bat's kind of waking up a littlebit. It looks like over the
last couple of games for Nolan Jonesand they desperately need that. Is this
Rockies team as bad as the recordhas been thus far, or is the

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last two games more indication of wherethey can go? Well, if you
look at Kyle Freeland has a twentyseven era, I'm going to say that
he's not that bad. Exactly wherethis team falls. You see that starting
pitching struggle a bit, And actuallytoday I thought that Austin Gombert he ran
up a huge pitch count, fortypitches in the first inning, but ended

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up getting through four innings just downtwo to one. The pitching has to
stabilize for this team to be good. Also, defensively, there have been
a number of mistakes. You don'texpect that from this Rocky's team when you
look at the identities of the guysall around the field. So there are
some things that say that make youunderstand that this team probably will struggle quite
a bit to season, but notas badly as the beginning of the season.

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So if you're Bud Black after theteam kind of seem like they squad
of the league and we're able towin the game score in ten runs,
what is kind of your message toyour team at this point? Known as
though this was the first time Coloradofans actually got a chance to see their
team at home. Well, baseballbeing such a day to day sport,

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there isn't really a big overarching messagehere. Obviously you're happy that you get
to win, but you have anothergame to marn another the next day,
and you keep going that way.So I think the important thing And it's
funny. I talked to Ryan McMahonthis morning and he was saying, in
his younger years, he may havebeen freaking out a little bit by the
one and six start, but youcan't do that in this game, and

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it's hard not to do it,but you can do it. You've just
got to simply keep sending your pitchersout there. Basic pitching principles. You're
going to play defense, you needto play defense, and just string together.
They ad bets like they have doneover this game and one inning in
the Chicago so you hope it doesbuild on things you but there isn't really

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a huge overarching message because it's rightthere in front of you and they have
what one hundred and fifty four moregames to play, you know. Pete
Fairbanks was not happy with the consistencyof the base balls coming in during the
bottom of the ninth inning, madeit a point to talk about that.
I don't know if you caught anyof that. What can you tell us
about that? Is that the legitimatecomplaint there or is that just somebody makeing
excuses. I think we will hearmore of this because the last two seasons

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the schedule has changed where every teamin the American League will play in the
National League Park every other year,So this was an experience and course field
that he can forget that he wantsto forget. And I know that a
lot of times when something goes wrong, pictures will say, hey, there's
an issue with the baseball. Well, with the Rockies went through this back
in twenty nineteen and twenty twenty wherea lot of their pitchers were struggling,

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But it wasn't the baseball, ofcourse, field they just felt that the
ball was different. So there issomething that you can say. But here's
the question. If Pete Fairbanks goesback to the Mount tomorrow with the chance
to close out a game, isthis going to be in the back of
his mind. That's what the Rockiespitchers deal with here all the time.
Maybe a cheap home run will happenor something a ball will land in the

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spacious outfield, and they've got toget back on the Mount and pitch.
And if they let that get tothem, whether it's whether it's just what
happens here or the thought that maybethere's some skullduggery, either of those things.
If that's in your head, itis very hard to pitch. I'll
be interested to see what Pete Fairbanksdoes for the rest of the series.
Well, Tom is that's very interestingbecause before you came on, Ben and

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I was having a conversation about theRockies pitching and how can they elevate their
their bullpen and a lot of picturesI mean, and speaking of the whole
Pete Fairbraings thing, this may playera role into it moving down the line
where pitchers don't want to come here. So how is it that Dick Montfort
and Bud Black they're able to attractmore quality pitchers to the city of Denver.

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Well, I don't think there isa way to attract quality pitchers to
the city of Denver unless they're comingoff injury, like the Coda Hudson.
I mean, he's first free andcan signing in a while. What you
have to do is you have tobuild that through your minor league system.
And if you go back and lookat the trades that the general manager,
Bill Schmid has made, I thinkevery trade but one, the one that

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got Nolan Jones, has brought inpitching. So they're going to attack this
problem with numbers, figuring if youhave as many starting pitchers as you can
collect, you'll have five of themto get you through a major league season,
and maybe some of them will turnout to be standouts, and they
can and they can win some gamesfor you. So that's the way they
do it here. Because if yougo out on the free agent market,

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I'll tell you what happens back yearsago, Mike Hampton and Denny Nagels saying
pretty big contracts with the Rockies.If you and if you go back and
you look at what they should havebrought on the free agent market, it
was the Rockies are not paying oneyear at top dollar more. If you
figure the lady you get into thecontract, you're not as effective, but

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yet you're paying top boller for onemore year. So the Rockies were pretty
much out of that market. Whatthey're going to have to do is maybe
trade for pitching, like with likeHermont Marcus, where they traded Corey Dickerson
to Tampa Bay and got him inhere at the start of his career.
That is the best way to doit. One thing I suggested in the
last hour from from my layman's perspective, was, if we're going to fix

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pitching here, why not go outand attempt to acquire ground ball pitchers,
you know, and that's not somethingthat the Rockies traditionally have done. I
mean, you had, you know, you had Freeland and Gobber, who
are both in the forties in termsof how how often they produce ground bowl
groub ball outs in the league.But guys like the Giants have gone out
and got guys like Logan Webb andAlex Cobb who are a tops at it.

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Why wouldn't that Why wouldn't you dothat and have that be an advantage
here? Actually, if you lookat the starting pitchers for many years,
like guys like Freeland and Marcus andguys like that, they usually are in
the top seven to sixteen in theleague in ground ball rate. I mean,
you know, obviously you have someextreme ground ball pitchers, and if

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you look at the history of theRockies, Aaron Cook, Baldovo, Menez
to a certain degree, although hewas a strikeout guy, Jeff Francis,
they have a lot of ground ballpitchers. Actually, the staff, you
know, you're pitching the contact,you're trying to get either ground ball or
weak contact. But if you lookat at the end of the season,
you'll see a lot of Rockies pitchersin the top fifteen to twenty in ground

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ball rate. So that is oneway to do it. I know that
one of the criticisms is actually theydon't have large strikeout guys and they never
have, not since Baldomanz and afew other guys, although Marquez is one
of them. They don't have alot of high strikeout guys. But usually
those are guys that are proven strikeoutguys, and when free agency comes and

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they get the Mega contract, theygo to a team where they can still
pitch, and a lot of themare not going to come to the Rockies,
especially if they think they're going toget another Mega contract at the end
of their career. Well, whenChris Bryan came to Denver, he was
viewed as being one of those sluggers, but it hasn't really turned out that
way. Do you think that today'sgame probably is one of those games that

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kind of get Chris Bryan back ontrack. The home run did help.
He did strike out next to Eatingsand heard the booze of the fans,
And it's not something you hear alot of in Denver, in Denver sports,
and even with the Rockies, theteam that struggled so much, you
don't hear the fans getting on someone. But I think Chris Bryant is strong
enough. I mean, the guyplayed in Chicago, he played for a

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World Series champion, and all kindsof different things in a big market here,
So I think that I don't thinkthat the fan reaction is going to
bother him. The question is canhe just get the timing going. I
found in spring training his swing wasin a pretty good place. I don't
know exactly what the numbers are becauseyou don't pay attention to him, but

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at times he was hitting the ballin the air. He had a few
home runs, he git a fewballs to the warning track. It just
seems like he's not seen the ballwell out of the pitcher's hand to start
the seasons. The question is isthis the first eight games of the season
just an eight game bad stretch thateverybody's going to have, or is something
else going on. I think thatthere'll be more focused because it's the first
eight games of the season. Butif Chris Brian is professional that he knows

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that he is, then he shouldbe able to turn this around as long
as he stays healthy. YE know, Brian hasn't lived up to the contract
I think that they signed him to. I think he would be the first
one to admit that Ryan McMahon's beenon a blistering pace so far this season,
but traditionally bat's a a lot lighterthan what he's been hitting out of
the gate. Out of this Rockiesteam has to step up in order for
this team to be competitive. Well, I think Chris Bryant has to be

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something close to what he was inChicago, where maybe not the maybe not
a forty home run guy, butif he gets around thirty home runs,
that makes a difference. Ryan McMahon, the way he's hitting right now is
if you look at his career,he's had catches like this. If he
can do it for a longer periodof time and limit the slumps, I

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think he can hit thirty home runsin the season. Brendan Rodgers has not
really gotten going either, and theybelieve that he's going to be a guy
who can drive in some runs,hit some doubles, maybe in the twenty
twenty five home run range, butalso drive in a lot of runs.
So there are guys that should beable to step up. You've seen it
in part of their histories. They'rejust going to have to do it consistently.

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Well. One of the things thatyou know we were talking about was
the pitching and the bats not wakingup early in the early part of the
season for the Rockies. But there'sanother thing that was occurring with routine defensive
plays. What do you think isthe reason that we've seen the Rockies make
so many defensive mistakes early on inthe season. Well, if you look

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at the left fielder Nolan Jones,he set some records as far as being
a rookie throwing people out on thebasis, but he really put a lot
of effort into being a better allaround outfielder, tracking balls, fielding balls,
and I think he pressed to beginthe season. The play today that
gave the Rays there one run lead, McMahon bounces one over the first base,

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But it was a tough play there. That's one Bryant has to be
able to make. And after thegame he made no excuses. He felt
that, hey, hop, onehop, throw right into his glove.
He should have been able to catchthat. I have seen some uncharacteristic bad
defense that if you go back tolast season, they led the free World
and errors in April and from Mayon they were one of the best defensive

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teams in baseball. It was asecret because they didn't pitch well and they
lost a lot of games, butthey were one of the best defensive teams
in baseball, So it may bejust getting into the season. Well,
see what happens from there. Tomorrowyou've got Tyler Alexander versus Ryan Feldner,
both teams. The Rockies win,they get a chance both teams to put
them to three and six? IsTampa the team that Colorado needs to be

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playing right now in order to kindof get right well? Tampa is a
perennial contender in the American League East, and I'm expecting them to be that
team. I mean what I've watchedtoday Offensively, they filed off a lot
of pitches. They did strike outa lot, but they fouled off a
lot of pitches. They really madethe starting pitcher at Austin Gomber work And

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if they keep hitting like that,they're going to be a good team in
the American League East Division. SoI don't look at this team even though
the record is three and six.I don't look at this team as a
bad baseball team because you'll probably seethem in the playoff hunt and we've seen
them in the playoffs quite a bitin recent years. They have to win
because they have to win. Butit's hard to look at something nine games

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of the season and say, hey, that's a bad team. You have
to beat them. Well fair enough, Thomas. We're gonna have to get
together talk about Memphis at some point. It's always good to hear your voice.
Look forward to having you on againsoon. Hey, thanks for having
me. Guys. Absolutely take careThomas Harding MLB dot Com Rockies insider always
get a chance to Always good toget a chance to talk to him.
As the Rockies get the ten toseven home opener win and get their second

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win of the seasons against the TampaBay Rays,