Walt Weiss says pitching staff "needs to get back to commanding the fastball"

DENVER — The Colorado Rockies are coming off a pair of games they’d rather forget, losing by a combined score of 21-4.

Manager Walt Weiss spoke to the media about Tyler Chatwood and Jorge De La Rosa, who came into this series pitching incredibly well but were largely responsible for the implosion of the last few days.

“[He] just needs to get back to commanding the fastball,” Weiss says of Chatwood. “Everything begins with that. For most guys, fastball command is your foundation, and he’s scattering his fastball. A lot of pitches up. It almost always comes down to location. Even the wrong pitch thrown in the right location is usually an out.”

But what went wrong? Weiss says he isn’t entirely sure. “Is it tied to something from the neck up? Is it tied to mechanics?” Weiss seemed to be leaning more heavily toward the theory that Chatwood is still making his way back from his second Tommy John surgery. “He’s been away for a long time.”

But then the Rockies manager underlined the most important point that he directed at his entire pitching staff:

“You can’t pitch in bad counts in this league. You get in bad counts, I don’t care how good your stuff is. If you’re always trying to make pitches to get back in counts, you’re not going to be successful.”

You wouldn’t expect any different, but Weiss does say that he expects things to turn around for Chatwood. “I have total confidence in Chatty and our pitching guys in getting him right again,” he says. As for what Chatwood and the rest of the crew need to do moving forward, Weiss put it simply: “Just get back to work.”