Banter From The Bench: Daniel Bard prefers to keep it positive

It feels like Daniel Bard has been a member of the Colorado Rockies for a very long time.

As the oldest member of the team who will play most of 2022 as a 37-year-old, his 90.1 innings pitched is second-most of any Rockies’ reliever and his 410 total batters faced is tops since joining the team two years ago.

He won the 2020 National League Comeback Player of the Year Award with six saves and a 3.65 ERA during the pandemic-shortened season, his first in the big leagues since 2013 with the Boston Red Sox.

Even when he’s not out on the mound, Bard has been impacting the success of the club in positive ways.

His background as a player mentor and mental skills coach with the Arizona Diamondbacks for two seasons before joining Colorado has paid off in dividends with a bullpen that got 172.1 innings out of rookie relievers in 2021.

He’s in the final year of club control before reaching free agency and his removal from the trade market last July spoke volumes about his value to the organization beyond his statistics.

We caught up with Bard during the final 2021 home stand at Coors Field to talk about focusing on positives, having fun on the diamond and even social media personalities.

Patrick Lyons: I was curious about your Pitching Ninja shirt. Big fan?

Daniel Bard: Somebody sent it to me. I like the shirt. That’s about it. I think he does some cool stuff.

Lyons: Do you follow a lot of the baseball people on social media?

Bard: A few. I like ones like him because they’re positive. They highlight the cool stuff that guys do on the field rather than a lot of media that focuses on the negative. Him, Jomboy, Barstool, sometimes. They’re all outside the box. Jomboy shows the fun parts of the game. I like that stuff.

Lyons: Do you think that’s an element of baseball that needs to be highlighted more: the fun part of the game.

Bard: I think so. I think there’s enough negativity. It’s not bad here, but there’s certain markets where it’s overwhelming. I think some of those northeast markets are really hard to play in because there’s very little notice of things that are going good, rolling along. And it’s like, things go poorly, that gets blown up. Especially as a reliever. We do our job right for a month, no one says a word. When you play two games it’s always terrible.

Lyons: Or if you have fun somewhere within that month, hold on, you don’t deserve to have a fun, yet.

Bard: Yes, at the end of the day this is a business and you get paid to win games, but sometimes the best way to win games is to go out and have fun. When you look at some of the best teams, they look like they’re genuinely having a good time. I think we do a good job over here. So, I’m all for it.

Lyons: Do you think that’s been a big element to the success that you guys got at home, and I think you guys have had a lot more success on the road at the end of the season.

Bard: We do have a group in here that we’ve had pretty low expectations coming in as a team, wins-wise, because of the division we play in. That being said, I think there’s a lot of young guys that have a lot to prove. To prove that they’re everyday big leaguers. You see (Ryan) McMahon stepping up and taking full advantage of this opportunity and maybe the best defensive player in the game right now. I see all over the field really, guys stepping up, playing in roles and we’ll see where it takes us to next year.

Lyons: When it comes to the young guys in the bullpen, what have you seen from some of them because there’s been a lot more successes as of late, too.

Bard: It’s been awesome. They took their punches early, some of them, and that’s the been the impressive thing. They hung in there, learned from those experiences rather than try to reinvent themselves or get scared of these situations. I think (Lucas Gilbreath) really stands out. Gilbreath has been unbelievable these past six weeks or so. And you just look at him… He looked a little bit scared his first month or so on the mound nervous. You don’t see any of that anymore. And he’s worked hard. He’s always asking me questions, asking other guys questions picking (bullpen coach Darryl Scott’s) brain down in the bullpen. He really wants to get better, and now we’re seeing the fruits of that.