DENVER (AP) \u2014 After getting the final out in the eighth inning, Kyle Freeland walked off the field as fans behind the Colorado Rockies\u2019 dugout gave the veteran left-hander a standing ovation.<\/p>\n
As it turned out, his day wasn\u2019t done quite yet, even as his time in Colorado may be coming to a close.<\/p>\n
The 33-year-old pieced together one of the best starts of his career, giving up one run and striking out eight in his first major league complete game as the Rockies beat the Kansas City Royals 8-1 on a scorching Sunday at Coors Field.<\/p>\n
It came in his 251st career start. Heading into the day, Freeland was one of just two pitchers in major league history, along with Eduardo Rodriguez, with at least 250 career starts and no complete games.<\/p>\n
It was the first complete game by a Rockies pitcher since June 27, 2022, when Chad Kuhl went the distance in a 4-0 win against the Los Angeles Dodgers.<\/p>\n
It was only the third time in Freeland\u2019s career that he had thrown at least eight innings.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s been such an enormous presence in the clubhouse in the Rockies\u2019 winning days and then through this lull we\u2019ve had in the past however many years, he\u2019s been a constant leader in the clubhouse,\u201d Rockies manager Warren Schaeffer said after the game. \u201cThrough thick and thin, which is the test of a real leader. Can you lead in distress? And he has. He\u2019s meant the world to me as a first time manager. He\u2019s been fantastic and I\u2019m so happy for him today.\u201d<\/p>\n
It has not been Freeland’s best season. He\u2019s 3-10 with a 6.81 ERA, 93 strikeouts and 23 walks.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had a lot of starts this year where it was, \u2018Gosh, one thing here and one thing there and we\u2019re sitting pretty,\u2019\u201d Freeland said. \u201cYou look at my starts and it\u2019s small things \u2014 if I would have executed better or if we had made this play, it would have been better. If I hadn\u2019t walked this guy, I wouldn\u2019t have let an inning snowball.”<\/p>\n
Sunday’s win was only his second in his past 19 starts. The latest victory was the 68th of his Colorado career, tying him with Germ\u00e1n M\u00e1rquez for the third-most in franchise history.<\/p>\n
While helping his team complete a three-game sweep of the Royals, Freeland retired 18 consecutive batters before allowing Salvador Perez’s double in the ninth inning. His stamina was even more impressive considering it came during the second-hottest home game in Rockies history. It was 99 degrees Fahrenheit at first pitch and in the top of the fifth inning, halfway through Freeland\u2019s outing, the temperature on the field was 123 degrees.<\/p>\n
The performance came as Freeland\u2019s name has surfaced in trade speculation ahead of Monday’s trade deadline. The Denver native has spent each of his 10 major league seasons with the Rockies.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the back of your head, there is that thought of this could be potentially my last one here at home,\u201d Freeland said after the game. \u201cWe\u2019ll see in the next 24 hours how all that unfolds.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DENVER (AP) \u2014 After getting the final out in the eighth inning, Kyle Freeland walked off the field…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":768726,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2387],"tags":[5,68349,1009,756,140,936,2123,55,2596,2595,1022,4,9501,9496,83038,94952,252,373,9130],"class_list":["post-768725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-kansas-city-royals","tag-baseball","tag-chad-kuhl","tag-coors-field","tag-eduardo-rodriguez","tag-german-marquez","tag-kansas","tag-kansas-city","tag-kansas-city-royals","tag-kansascity","tag-kansascityroyals","tag-kyle-freeland","tag-mlb","tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","tag-product-40777-ap-colorado-sports-only","tag-rockies-freeland-complete-game","tag-royals","tag-salvador-perez","tag-warren-schaeffer"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117030656601817336","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=768725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/768726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=768725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=768725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=768725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}