Jon Gray's exciting new development

When I was a kid, I never understood that phrase about not being able to see the forest through the trees. Then I became a baseball fan. Paying attention to details in this game can kill you. It’s easy to lose sight of the bigger picture. That is, unless you are paying attention to the right details.

Jon Gray’s final stat line wasn’t pretty. But that’s not the story of the Colorado Rockies 11-6 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers on Wednesday night.

What is?

He was toying with a slide-step mechanic that clearly hasn’t been completely ironed out but which could give him another weapon to throw off the timing of hitters. Colorado saw a season ago what the introduction of this concept did for Chris Rusin who quickly became one of their most valuable players and famously employed it to make Justin Turner look silly during a Rockies sweep of the Dodgers last September.

The execution is still firmly in the “work in progress” category and it’s unclear whether or not this impacted his overall command which was admittedly subpar.

He was tagged twice by Kike Hernandez who had the only two extra-base hits that Gray surrendered, but they were big ones. After a one-out walk and a flare single in the second, Hernandez went up and somehow managed to turn on a high-and-inside fastball to pull it over the left-field fence for a three-run homer. In the third, a pair of singles set the stage for a line-drive double for Hernandez before Gray could again regain control.

He gave up five runs on six hits and walked two but also struck out six. He had a great slider going, but spring training is for trying new things and focusing on weaknesses, not trying to blow guys away with the stuff that you know works.

Jairo Diaz was fantastic in his inning of work, getting three weak groundouts. He has yet to allow a run this spring and is inching ever closer to getting an MLB spot.

Harrison Musgrave, despite recording five strikeouts, gave up four runs on five hits in 1.2 innings. Zac Rosscup was knocked around for two runs on two hits.

Raimel Tapia led the game off with what would surely have been a triple had it not hopped over the wall for a ground-rule double. He scored with ease on a Gerardo Parra double. Both players went 1-for-2 with a walk and Tapia added a second run.

Jordan Patterson went 2-for-3 to bring his spring batting average up to .311.

In the ninth, Brendan Rodgers took a pitch at his knees and smashed it off the batter’s eye in center field in another impressive display of his power.

The Rockies will take on the LA Angels Thursday at 2:10 MST. Tyler Anderson is scheduled to pitch against Andrew Heaney.