DENVER — Through no fault of his own, Rockies pitcher Austin Gomber has been forced to carry a palpable weight around his shoulders since coming to the Rockies. So it goes for being a significant part of the return to Colorado from the 2021 trade of Nolan Arenado to the St. Louis Cardinals.

But this season, after finally returning from left shoulder soreness that sidelined him for the first two-and-a-half months of the campaign, it seemed as though it reached a breaking point.

His first start back was promising: five shutout innings of two-hit ball in Atlanta on Father’s Day. Five nights later, the Arizona Diamondbacks pummeled him for 12 hits — including three home runs — over 4 2/3 innings.

With rare exceptions, Gomber’s turns in the Rockies rotation since then have been an unremitting nightmare.

Virtually every metric for the 31-year-old left-hander is on pace to be the worst of his career. No major-league pitcher with at least 50 innings to his name has a worse home-runs-per-nine-innings rate this season.

And on Tuesday nightm he missed few bats, with too many pitches settling over the heart of the plate.

Against a Dodgers lineup wrecked by injury but still featuring familiar surnames like Ohtani, Betts and Freeman, disaster ensued.

In three innings, the Los Angeles fusillade pounded out nine hits — including two doubles and two no-doubter home runs from Alex Call and Shohei Ohtani, the latter of which was a 115.9-MPH, line-drive missile that landed in the Rockies’ bullpen.

115.9 mph off the bat from Shohei! pic.twitter.com/mMgiwxdgIu

— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) August 20, 2025

Gomber has now allowed two home runs in each of his last four starts.

It wasn’t merely THAT the Dodgers were getting hits, it was the velocity at which they launched. In the first two innings, the Dodgers had four batted balls clocked at 105 MPH or greater.

Gomber was able to induce softer contact in the third inning … but that led to five singles in a six-batter span. After 75 pitches, nine hits and seven runs, his night mercifully ended, and his search for answers began.

Over 90 minutes later, in the still of the Rockies clubhouse after the 11-4 loss, he was still looking.

“I just feel like I’m just a little bit lost out there right now. I don’t really feel like I have any confidence, conviction, really don’t really have, like, an identity of what I’m trying to do,” Gomber said.

“Just trying to figure it out. It is what it is.”

The thing is, Gomber knows the surface-level problem.

“I’m giving up hits on mistakes over the middle of the plate, so, I would say, probably a lack of command, but it’s just making pitches. I’m not throwing everything down the middle, right? I have at-bats, it’s just come and go,” he said.

So, that’s a first step. But the root of the problem? That’s something deeper.

“I don’t really have a lot of belief in what I’m doing, so I’m just kind of, like, searching as we go,” he said. “It’s a tough place to be, out there trying to figure out what’s going to work on the fly. But that’s just kind of what I have right now. Trying to find it. Trying to find something to grab onto and go with. But right now, I’m just struggling to find it.”

ROCKIES WILL HAVE A DECISION TO MAKE ON GOMBER

The clock could be running out for Gomber with the Rockies. He is due to become an unrestricted free agent after the season. After posting a career high 2.1 WAR (Baseball Reference) in 2024, he’s slipped underwater; he entered Tuesday’s game at minus-0.2.

Assuming Gomber remains healthy, he should have another six or seven outings remaining to try to marshal a turnaround.

But getting there probably starts with a first — and simple step: recovering the self-confidence and belief that, by his own admission, is missing.

“This game’s hard enough. When you don’t believe in yourself, you’re in a really tough spot,” he said.

“… I just don’t know, kind of in the flow of the game, what I should throw, the conviction in one pitch, like when I’m in a tough spot, I’m gonna go to this.

“Right now, it’s struggling to find that conviction, so I feel like I’m trying to figure out how to get outs instead of having an idea, this is my identity, this is how I’m going to get outs.”

In a lost season for the Rockies, there’s no reason not to give Gomber several more more chances to find that identity. But such solutions generally aren’t quick fixes, and answers don’t come easy.