Scottsdale, Ariz. — Tanner Gordon is in his third spring training with the Colorado Rockies and is in the mix for the fifth starter spot alongside Chase Dollander, Ryan Feltner and Antonio Senzatela. Gordon had a remarkable 2025 campaign and is looking to build on that in 2026.
“[There’s] a lot of good energy around the clubhouse and good energy in the hallways,” Gordon said. “Obviously, with a new regime, there’s always going to be a new taste to everything. So it’s been good. [The] energy levels are really high.”
Like many other pitchers, Gordon is working on some new pitches. A few weeks ago, he mentioned he was working on a two-seam fastball.
“It’s going (well),” he said. “I try to throw it in catch play as much as I can. It’s a one-seamer, technically, but it still moves the same way as a two-seamer. I’m just trying to mess with it as much as I possibly can.”
Gordon is also working to refine the pitches already in his arsenal, namely, “the slider, the cutter, mixing up a different changeup grip, so it almost has two different shapes.”
Since this has been something new pitching coach Alon Leichman has preached this spring, it’s not surprising that Gordon is also expanding his pitch mix. And so far, Gordon is liking the new staff and what they bring to the table.
“I think they’re great,” he said. “I think they bring a lot of knowledge to us, and definitely different viewpoints from what we’ve had in the past.
“And they’re able to relay more advanced things and make it easy for us to understand,” he continued. “Nobody wants to be out on the field thinking about a million things or be thinking about some super complex idea. So they simplify things and just make it easy for us (so) we can just go out there and play.”
Leichman has also passed along a new philosophy for the pitching staff.
“He just wants us to fill up the strike zone as much as we possibly can,” Gordon said. “3-2 strikes, and then go for the kill when we have two strikes, so it takes a lot of thinking off our plate.
“As a starter, you go through the lineup a few times,” he continued, “so you kind of have to start having to pitch the second and third time through, but just be on the attack the whole time. And I’ve thought of it that way, but it wasn’t my whole philosophy going into it.”
While the players are exploring expanded arsenals, Leichman has also experimented with calling pitches from the dugout. Some pitchers, like Ryan Feltner, are all for it. Gordon isn’t quite sure yet, but acknowledged, “What he’s said makes sense.”
“He has the scouting report right in front of him. He can look at it in real time and call what he wants,” he said.
“Then there’s also the game aspect of you being in the game and feeling out what you want to throw,” Gordon continued. “And there are probably going to be some times where, say, he calls a pitch and I don’t feel like that’s the right pitch for me. I don’t feel comfortable throwing that pitch. I want to throw this pitch. Then I’ll just call it off and throw the pitch I want to throw. And that’s what a lot of the guys talk about, too. I’m not leaning to one side of it.”
Gordon is also leaning on the veteran pitchers for support on and off the field.
“I worked out with [Kyle] Freeland all offseason here in Scottsdale,” he said. “And then when [Michael] Lorenzen came in, he’s super easy to talk to. He’s an open book. He’s helped me a ton, not even with baseball but also off the field – what he does for recovery, all that kind of stuff, and his mindset on that.”
But most of all, he’s finishing up camp with the goal to “remain consistent and control what [he] can control.”
“Obviously, there’s a bunch of new starters that we signed,” he said. “So keep the blinders on and have fun, enjoy spring training but also know that I have a job to do and we as a whole organization have a job to do moving forward.”
To Read (State of the Position)
Weekend Discussion Topics
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