DENVER -- Mom’s lesson of preparedness, and the punitive foul pole-to-foul pole running that came with it, is burned in the memory of Rockies rookie pitcher Chase Dollander (Rockies’ No. 1 prospect, MLB’s No. 21 prospect according to MLB Pipeline). Now, his mother, Sandra Wall, doesn’t remember it exactly as her son does. But a lesson learned is a lesson learned. In honor of Mother’s Day on Sunday, son and mom looked back at what happened: The home in Evans, Ga., was always busy. Dollander has two brothers, Hunter, who is older, and Trevor, who is younger. They later gained a stepbrother. Getting kids to their various activities was an undertaking for his mother. Mistakes happen because …
Kids. |
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“I can’t remember how old I was, but I was really young,” Dollander said. “We were all heading to practice. We had all our cleats and stuff in the garage. We were in a crunch and I grabbed a random pair of cleats. Well, I get to the field, and I have two left cleats. “My mom is infuriated with me. I have, like, Crocs on. I slipped the Crocs into Sport Mode and went and ran poles because she made me.” Keep in mind, his mother did not double as coach. “The coach talked to my mom and he was like, ‘Yeah, I would have done the same thing,’ so they were on the same page,” Dollander said. Wall, however, didn’t have quite the same memory. “I don’t think it was me that made him run the poles -- it was probably the coach,” she said. “And I was like, ‘He showed up with two left cleats. What am I supposed to do?'” |
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Maybe memories become fuzzy. What’s important is that Dollander learned to be responsible and prepared, and he credits his mother for it. Right, Mom? “That is really funny,” she said. “I don’t remember it happening that way. “But if it did, then good for me. Right?” What’s not in dispute is that mom was always there for Dollander through youth and high school ball, and in college at Georgia Southern and the University of Tennessee -- from which the Rockies selected Dollander ninth overall in 2023. |
“What doesn’t a mom do to support her son, right?” Dollander said. “She does anything and everything from, when I was younger, driving me to my games to paying for everything. Now, it’s calling me, giving me words of encouragement, telling me that she’s praying for me.”
They may not share memories of the details of the “two left cleats” incident. They were of the same mind as Dollander dedicated himself to pitching.
“He was around 10 or 11 years old, and he had some soreness,” Wall said. “We didn’t know anything about pitch counts. I took him to a physical therapist and they were like, ‘You really need to start looking at this.’
“So we really started honing in on pitch counts by age. We really made sure we adhered to that number. ‘He’s not going to pitch more than 75,’ or whatever the number was. I really wanted to make sure that he was going to stay healthy.” |
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MLB MORNING LINEUP PODCAST |
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Without many leads to protect, strong recent performances from the Rockies bullpen can easily escape notice. But it was worth combing through the messy three-game home sweep at the hands of the Tigers to unearth some innings-eating work that left the bullpen in reasonable shape for this weekend’s series with the Padres.
• Righty Jake Bird replaced a struggling Dollander on Wednesday to keep the Rockies in the game by throwing three innings, tying a career high. His outing was scoreless and with three strikeouts, and he has at least one strikeout in his last 12 appearances, his longest such run. • In Thursday’s 10-2 loss in the first game of a doubleheader, righty Angel Chivilli replaced a laboring Kyle Freeland in the fourth inning. He went a career-high 3 2/3 innings, gave up two runs (one earned) and struck out three. It was the longest appearance innings-wise for a Rockies reliever this season. • Rookie righty Juan Mejia pitched 2 1/3 innings after Chivilli left and struck out a career-high five. Mejia, who began the year at Triple-A Albuquerque, has pitched his first five outings to no earned runs, one walk and 10 strikeouts.
Short starts like the ones by Dollander and Freeland will threaten the effectiveness of the bullpen over the long run. But for all of the team’s struggles, the Rockies’ 3.77 relief ERA sits a respectable 14th in all of MLB. |
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Part of the Rockies’ predicament stems from injuries not only to both projected starting middle infielders, shortstop Ezequiel Tovar and second baseman Thairo Estrada, but also to two utility players -- Tyler Freeman and Aaron Schunk. Freeman, acquired from the Guardians for outfielder Nolan Jones late in Spring Training, could be the first of the crew to return. Freeman sustained a left oblique strain during an early-season road trip to San Diego. Freeman, who also can play center field, feared the worst from his injury. “I pretty much tore it last September, and it took me that whole offseason just to feel a little bit better. In Spring Training, I was 100 percent good to go. Then when it happened in San Diego, it was very sharp -- like something stabbed me again. “I was a little nervous, but I took a week off, then nothing in terms of pain. I started ramping up and the pain faded away.” Freeman is expected to begin his injury rehab assignment this weekend. Tovar, Estrada and Schunk also increased their activity this week. |
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