Much like The Dude in Los Angeles back in the early ’90s, Bud Black really is the man for his time and place. He fits right in.
While the Rockies are off to the best pre-All-Star break start in club history, the veteran of 15 major league seasons as a player and another 10 as manager never gets too high or too low. Such was the case on Sunday, when after his rookie starting pitcher had a no-hitter busted up with one out in the ninth inning, Black took the opportunity to wax poetic for the gathered Denver media (and the fans watching at home).
“We talked about it [before the game], right? That’s why we come to this game because we don’t know what’s gonna happen,” Black said. “We talk about that all the time. That’s the beauty of this game. This game is played by human beings, you know, with a great deal of emotion, and you just don’t know, and you know that’s the beauty of it.”
Sunday was without a doubt an emotional day as the hometown kid, Freeland, tried to make history as the first Rockies player ever to pitch a no-hitter at Coors Field. Add to that the fact that it was the last game before the All-Star break, and it would decide a series, and that the Rockies – at one point the best team in the National League – had lost 13 of their previous 17 games to slip to third place in the NL West.
Yet, entering such a meaningful contest, Black was sure of only one thing when it came to his young pitcher.
“So today, I knew what the first pitch was going to be. I knew it was going to be a fastball,” Black said. “I didn’t know it was going to be a ball or a strike. Just from my experience and with Kyle, I thought it was going to be 91 mph, and it was. Then after that, you don’t know.”
Black had plenty of reason to be concerned about his young pitcher. The 24-year-old Thomas Jefferson High School graduate had suffered losses in each of his previous three outings to slip to 8-7 on the season. Not only was his record and ERA slipping, so too was his command.
Just days prior Black and the Rockies had to ship another rookie who started the year hot, Antonio Senzatela, to Triple-A. Black very publicly had to dress down Freeland during his last outing. Another bad performance by Freeland and he could have been on the same path.
But as Black likes to point out regularly, the game of baseball does what it wants, not what players or coaches or fans or media think it should.
“I didn’t know, nobody knew he was going to take a no-hitter into the ninth inning. And it was, it was great. It was a great baseball game. It’s great theater. It’s great drama. The people who were here loved it. The people who were watching on TV, which I hope were a ton, enjoyed every minute of it. It was a great day of entertainment,” Black said.
Freeland was the right man in the right place on Sunday, but Black has been the right fella all season long for the Rockies.
In a city bursting with excitement about a team 13 games over .500 at the All-Star break, Black has tempered enthusiasm and meted rationality. Whether it be a 10-0 near-no-hit victory like Sunday, or an eight-game losing streak like his club endured in mid-to-late June, Black has the perfect temperament to handle his ballclub, the fans and the Denver media.
It’s hard to say how things will end way out in the National League West. There’s still a lot of baseball to play.
We know the Rockies play the Mets in New York on Friday. We know the Dodgers will play the Marlins in Miami and the Diamondbacks will be in Atlanta that same night. All we know after that is that things will be darned interestin’ for Bud Black, and that he’ll take ‘er easy for the rest of us.
