This morning Bud Black was introduced as the Colorado Rockies manager. This morning ESPN’s Buster Olney wrote a piece on why Bud Black is “set to take on [the] most difficult manager job in MLB.”
That didn’t take long.
There’s no getting around it: Coaching at altitude is a challenge. The game of baseball simply isn’t the same 5,280 feet above sea level, and everyone knows it. But Bud Black isn’t about to use it as an excuse.
“Once the game starts, it’s baseball,” Black told Eric Goodman and Les Shapiro of Afternoon Drive on Mile High Sports AM 1340 | FM 104.7. “It’s nine guys against nine guys. It’s hitters and pitchers and making plays and running the bases. I think that if we outplay the other team, we’re going to be fine. … If you make pitches in Coors Field, if you play defense, if you throw strikes, if you hit cutoff men, all those things, good teams can win here. And I think we’re on the verge of being pretty good.”
As anyone who has looked at the Rockies’ offensive statistics over the last two decades can attest, the long ball rules at Coors Field. And that’s not exactly great news for those pitchers unfortunate enough to have to play here 81 times a year.
But if pitchers let that get into their head, that’s when the altitude goes from a consideration to a problem.
“It starts with the mindset of pitching aggressive,” Black said. “If there’s any tentativeness in our pitchers because they’re pitching here, we have to stop that.”
Of course, you can’t ignore the altitude entirely. Like it or not, it is a factor.
“When you talk about altitude, you talk about rest and recovery,” Black said. “You have to take into account the toll it takes on players as the season progresses. We have to have a critical eye on our pitchers’ arms and fatigue and rest, and make sure guys are really taking care of themselves, and we’re doing the best we can as an organization to stay on top of those things.”
To hear more from Black, including his thoughts on sabermetrics in baseball, check out the podcast below …
Catch Afternoon Drive with Goodman and Shapiro Monday-Friday from 4p-6p on Mile High Sports AM 1340 | FM 104.7 or stream live any time for the best local coverage of Colorado sports from Denver’s biggest sports talk lineup.