DENVER – Rockies rookie right-hander Chase Dollander was delightfully surprised by the different sound to Wednesday afternoon. It was STEM Day, so many of the 29,661 in attendance at Coors Field were squealing school children.
“When the scoreboard said, ‘Get loud,’ it was a little louder than usual – a little more high-pitched, too,” Dollander said, smiling.
Starting with Dollander’s 5 2/3 innings of one-run, two-hit ball, the Rockies elicited long-awaited happy noises from fans young and old alike by ending their losing streak at eight games with a 2-1 victory over the Braves.
The victory – with Brenton Doyle’s solo homer off Chris Sale in the third providing the difference – improved the Rockies’ record to 5-25, tied with the 1932 Red Sox and 1952 Pirates for the second-worst 30-game start to an MLB season since 1900. The 1988 Orioles were a game worse. But as the sounds that rang out at Coors foretold, Wednesday was not about a bunch of losing yesterdays.
The 23-year-old Dollander, rated as MLB Pipeline’s No. 23 and the Rockies’ No 1 prospect, justified the Rockies’ pitching hopes for tomorrow.
“Chase is built the right way,” Rockies manager Bud Black said. “This is a great confidence-builder – going up against Chris Sale, a Cy Young Award winner. And he basically outdueled him.”
Dollander was selected ninth overall out of the University of Tennessee in 2023. While he grew up in Evans, Ga., about two hours from Atlanta, he didn’t carry any childhood fandom for the Braves onto the mound.
“I didn’t really pay attention to baseball growing up,” he said. “I played enough of it. I was like, ‘I don’t want to watch.’ But my family was pretty hyped, pretty jacked up about it.”
Dollander was more jacked about the sounds of the clubhouse after the game. The postgame celebration playlist was at Cher’s “Believe” by the time visitors were allowed to enter, and laughter rang with the sound system’s volume reduced.
“You guys can probably hear it now – we’re in pretty good spirits,” Dollander said. “I would not say that we were down in the locker room. Obviously, losing is not fun. But at the same time, we know that we’re capable of winning, and we haven’t put a winning product on the field. So that’s exactly what we did today.”
Dollander displayed his talent by striking out 13 over his first two starts – a home win over the Athletics on April 6 and a 2-0 loss at San Diego on April 12. But he gave up 11 earned runs in 8 2/3 innings over his next two starts, losses at home to the Nationals and on the road to the Royals.
But on Wednesday, Dollander showed what can happen when a pitcher learns from growing pains.
Dollander’s motion when he’s going well is best described as quick. It was too quick at Kansas City. He could not throw strikes with his best pitch, his curveball. He corrected the flaw on Wednesday.
The Braves scored their lone run in the third and had a runner at third with two outs, but Dollander fanned Austin Riley on one of his better curves of the day. In the fifth, after a diving stop by third baseman Ryan McMahon robbed Nick Allen of a hit that could have driven home a run, Dollander used another curve to induce a groundout from Eddie Rosario and leave a runner at third again.
Dollander’s final effective pitch was a curve that locked Marcell Ozuna for his fourth strikeout with a runner at second and two outs in the sixth. But a cracked middle fingernail led to him walking the next batter, and he left after one pitch to Ozzie Albies. Dollander said he had cracked the nail during Spring Training and had a new one applied at a nail salon not far from the club’s complex in Scottsdale, Ariz., but that one came off a few days ago.
Jake Bird, a reliever with some seasoning, finished off Albies with a strikeout and breezed through the seventh. Then two other rookies, Seth Halvorsen and Zach Agnos (who earned his first save in his fifth Major League appearance) finished off the contest. The Braves managed just three hits – the fewest given up by the Rockies in a game at Coors Field since June 27, 2022, a 4-0 victory over the Dodgers.
“It’s a good one to build off of, and continue on this path that I’m on,” Dollander said. “Just keep working. I know my stuff is good. Just keep locking in on the small things.”