PEORIA, Ariz. (AP) - Jon Gray and Tyler Anderson, two former first-round picks by Colorado, will start the first two games of the Rockies season.
Manager Bud Black told Gray on Thursday he would start the Monday opener in Milwaukee.
“I told him it’s a feather in the cap,” Black said. “It’s a special day for everybody in baseball.”
Gray has come along quickly since being the third overall pick in the 2013 draft. He went 10-10 with a 4.61 ERA in 29 starts last year, striking out 185 in 168 innings.
“It’s really exciting, it’s the first game of the season,” Gray said. “But then again, it’s another game. I’m just looking to get hitters out.”
Anderson was the 20th overall pick out of Oregon in 2011. He was the Texas League pitcher of the year in 2014 with a 1.98 ERA over 118 innings, but was set back by an elbow stress fracture and missed all of 2015. He made his major league debut last June 12 and went 5-6 with a 3.54 ERA in 19 starts.
Black had not told Anderson he would start the second game, but said “all indications, it looks that way.”
Anderson allowed two runs, three hits and a walk with three strikeouts over three innings Thursday in the Rockies’ 10-5 triumph over the San Diego Padres. He was removed after 55 pitches, as planned.
Hunter Renfroe’s walk in the second jumpstarted a two-run inning off Anderson.
Shortstop Trevor Story made a web-gem highlight in the first. Yangervis Solarte hit a grounder up the middle that Story knocked down and blindly flipped over his shoulder to second baseman DJ LeMahieu to start a double play.
“Unbelievable,” Anderson said. “He’s a stud athlete. He made a great play even getting to it, then he barely stopped it and then to be able to stay with it and have the wherewithal where the ball is and get a flip off and DJ made a good play. That’s a fun infield. He has got a good sense of awareness. That goes a long way”
Said Black: “You sort of wish that was during the regular season. We’d see that running for decades. That just shows what he can do and he and DJ can do together.”
NOTES: Padres manager Andy Green announced RHPs Trevor Cahill and Luis Perdomo earned the final two rotation slots. Jarred Cosart, who made 13 starts last year, will go to the bullpen. Cahill was in the Cubs bullpen last year. RHP Jhoulys Chacin will start the opener Monday against the Dodgers. … The Padres added RHP Craig Stammen to the 40-man roster. Stammen came to camp on a minor league contract.
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