There are some things that aren’t said often. One of those things is that a young starting pitcher was dominant, pounding the strike zone and delivering a game for the ages.
That is what young starting pitcher Chad Bettis did for the Rockies on Friday night in Philadelphia.
It wasn’t long ago that all eyes were on the young prospect. The Texas Tech product was a guy who could throw in the mid-90’s and had off-speed pitches that were worthy of the big leagues. However, it didn’t take long for the welcome to wear off. Bettis was switched between being a starter to a reliever, back to being a starter. It isn’t hard to imagine that when the Rockies were changing Bettis, he seemed to forget his identity.
After starting the season in Triple-A, Bettis was an afterthought. He is far from that on Friday night. On Sunday, Bettis went into the 9th inning with a shutout. On Friday, he did one better than that, taking a perfect game into the 8th inning and a shutout through eight innings.
In the end, Bettis threw eight shutout innings, giving up just two hits. He struck out seven and didn’t walk a single batter. The Chad Bettis that the Rockies have seen in the past five days is the Chad Bettis that the Rockies could only have hoped for when he was a prospect.
Very quickly the Rockies are seeing significant outings from their starters. An area of strong concern for this team heading into the season was how their young pitchers would perform. Much of that weight was supposed to fall on the shoulders of Eddie Butler, Tyler Matzek and Jordan Lyles. Instead, the Rockies are getting the strong performances that they hoped for from names like Chris Rusin, David Hale and now twice from Bettis.
The success of Bettis is essentially the standard formula for success in the big leagues. He attacks the strike zone with all of his pitches. Pounding the strike zone requires the opposing offense to swing the bat. As cliche as it might sound, there are nine guys who can field batted balls and make outs. There is no defense for a walk.
Bettis also seems to trust his off-speed pitches far more in 2015 than in his previous big league appearances. Often times on Friday night his changeup would wind up in the dirt, with Nick Hundley blocking the ball after a swing and miss from Phillies batters. Bettis’ curveball was also breaking hard and in the zone. He was able to snap off the pitch with confidence.
While Bettis looked great, Troy Tulowitzki finally broke out of a home run slump. It had been over a month since Tulo went deep. On Friday night he did it in consecutive at-bats. After coming into the game with just a 2-for-10 career mark off of Phillies starter Cole Hamels, Tulowitzki suddenly figured out the tough lefty. He drilled two home runs with two outs, giving the Rockies and Bettis a chance to win.
The Rockies shortstop has been clouded with trade rumors, much of which were started by his own agent. However, he has also been prone to swinging at far more pitches up in the zone, which has resulted in less walks and more pop-outs.
It certainly isn’t a huge sample size, but the recent run of success from the Rockies starting pitchers has to be encouraging to fans. The area that this team has been lacking for so many years has been in their starting staff. Beyond Jorge De La Rosa, the Rockies struggles have been largely due to their lack of depth at starting pitching. The addition of Bettis to the rotation is a great thing, if Rusin can pitch the way he did on Wednesday, as well as Hale making a strong campaign for a spot every fifth day, the Rockies suddenly have guys who might have a chance to be pretty good at the big league level.
The outing was a banner day for Bettis in his big league career. However, it was also a banner day for the Rockies, because it gives them hope in their future. It gives them reason to believe that they have the young starters in their system that can take them to the next level and get them to the point that they need to be to compete on a day-to-day basis in the National League West.
