The real Jon Gray

Something peculiar happened when I first walked into the Colorado Rockies spring training clubhouse this season.

It might seem an innocuous thing to highlight but this one small moment spoke volumes more than the countless interviews and interactions I’ve had with Jon Gray over the years.

Typically, there would have been the standard greetings, questions about fun offseason activities, what new video games we’ve been playing, checking in on families, and then eventually and inevitably questions about his curveball.

But this time, in no hurry to be anywhere, he walked by, never breaking stride, looked over… and winked at me. And it was a knowing wink.

For better or for worse (and it has often been for worse) Gray knows what the narratives surrounding him have been since we first met in Grand Junction in 2013. He has been flustered by the journalists and fans who have lost faith in him but he remembers those who have kept it.

Now he is more focused and centered than ever, as shown in the blink of an eye, ready to truly show what he is capable of.

“Jon can be a dominating pitcher, as we’ve seen,” manager Bud Black reminds us.

But his 2018 campaign was fraught with now-famous battles with his own body and an inconsistency that was maddening for everyone involved.

The last time we spoke, in the clubhouse after the final loss against the Brewers in the NLDS, he was vowing to get into the proverbial best shape of his life. It was like a weight of the season had lifted in that moment and he saw with clear eyes what the future needed to look like.

“I’m at 230 [lbs] so I’m just trying to hang onto 230 and if I can get up to 235, I’m going to. I met with a few (nutritionists) this offseason just to talk about a plan going in, but for the most part, it’s just been on me.”

It may be the king of all cliches at this point, but it is still an unequivocal and important fact that Gray is as strong and well-conditioned as he has ever been.

“I’m a lot stronger,” he says. “A lot bigger.” He is noticeably bigger, especially in the arms. “Getting back to a strong point and understanding myself. I just didn’t feel strong in any area last year. It’s been a good start physically, getting big and strong. It’s like a tree: you need a strong foundation.”

Tree Wolf.

There’s even been a more purely aesthetic change with the infamous haircut, a subject that has oddly made its way to the forefront with him. “I don’t know why, I just went in and did it. I might do something else. I didn’t really know what to do. The lady was like, ‘What do you want?’ It’s a mess. I look like a caveman. Just make me look like I could go somewhere and buy something and be ok. I look like I own a home now.”

His transformative efforts haven’t gone unnoticed by the manager. “My sense is that last year he learned a lot,” says Black. “And this season, he can take a lot of the lessons from last year into this year. Physically, he’s in a good spot. We talked about the weight loss last year and the weight gain this year. He lost strength and weight and that affected his stuff and his stamina.

“And mentally, there’s some self-confidence things you wouldn’t think you’d see from Jon,” he continued, “I think what we’re hearing in our conversations, that he’s in a good spot there how he feels confidence-wise.”

Yeah, he’s winking at reporters. That’s a new Jon Gray from the one we saw running gravel through his hair and thinking about angry fans after bad outings.

“It’s just that time in my life where I’ve got to bump it up a notch,” he says. “I’ve felt like all-around this year I’ve got better. I feel better about my arsenal. I feel like I have more trust in my pitches. I know what they do. I know how they should work. I feel like I’m understanding a lot more about myself.”

It wasn’t easy, though.

Most of us can’t imagine the pressure that these guys are under, the number of people who will be made happy if you do well and miserable if you don’t. The longstanding irony of Gray is that he has, at times, cared too much about this dynamic.

It’s a good thing that he wants to do well for the fans and it’s even a good thing that he still gets nervous. The day you stop experiencing anxiety while performing in front of thousands of people is the day any performer has lost the passion.

Now it’s about focusing that passion and pairing it with a chip on his shoulder.

“People wrote me off,” he says. “I think I did end up helping the team out a little bit last year. I won some pretty big games. I did feel like I was written off a few times. It was kind of tough to deal with. Not feeling like part of team sometimes. You’ve just got to find a way to make yourself useful around the clubhouse when things aren’t going well. Pick up your teammates, talk it up, have a good time.”

And he admits that he did not respond well to those criticisms from a year ago, allowing them to drag him down a bit rather than become a source for inspiration to prove those people wrong.

“Anger comes to me so naturally,” he says. “I have some anger. I felt like a lot of people blame me for a lot of things that have happened in the last couple of years. I can’t get mad about that. That’s just someone’s thought. It ain’t my problem if someone else is upset about something like this.”

Figuring out that other people’s anger ain’t his problem while still taking seriously the responsibilities of his job is the balance Gray has been searching for.

“I don’t really care about outside influences,” he says with renewed confidence. “There’s always going to be the negative people you’re going to have to deal with. It’s just one of those things. There’s a lot of pain and anger in the world and sometimes it’ll get forced back on you. You’ve just got to deal with it. You live your life and you can only control what you can and make the best of it.”

That attitude now needs to carry out to the field, he says, especially when he feels like he is fighting with himself and his best out-pitch, the slider.

“It was my bread and butter. It was my go to. It was what I throw 30 percent of the time sometimes. I didn’t have it. When it wouldn’t come back, I felt helpless at times.”

After his most recent outing in spring, striking out eight Milwaukee Brewers, five of his last seven faced after surrendering a pair of runs in the middle innings, Black remarked: “I like the fact that the ball was coming out of his hand with ease. Physically, it looked like his stuff was good. I was more excited about how his arm worked and his delivery.”

“It’s really encouraging,” Gray said, “Because I’m able to go out there day after day after day and repeat it.”

Yes, it’s just spring training, but yes those are exactly the types of situations that unraveled for Gray last season and he couldn’t have responded to it any better on Saturday.

“I did show a lot of negative body language last year if I didn’t have it,” he said. “You could see it on me. That’s something I’m kicking to the curb.”

If he gets rid of that – the handful of moments that led to the implosions that blew up his season – he goes right back to being one of the most dominant pitchers in the game, the real Jon Gray, in the blink of an eye.