Gabriel Hughes (PuRP No.12) was back in his hotel room in Round Rock, Texas, done for the night, when his phone rang. It was 11:30 p.m. On the other end was Pedro Lopez, his Triple-A manager in Albuquerque, calling with news that would change the trajectory of Hughes’ summer – and maybe his career.
“He said, ‘Hey, I need you to head back to the stadium and start packing your bags. You’re going to the big leagues,’” Hughes recalled.
Advertisement
He called his parents. He called his brother. By the next morning, he was on a flight out of Austin, landing in Denver around 10 or 11 a.m. — hours before he’d put on a Rockies uniform for the first time.
A setback that became a reset
It was the conclusion of a monthlong stretch that began, of all places, on the injured list.
Hughes missed time earlier this year with a left oblique injury, and while no pitcher wants to lose time to the IL, he says the setback doubled as a reset button.
“Every time it happens, it’s always an opportunity to kind of take stock of where you’re at,” Hughes said. “It was an opportunity for me to go back to Arizona, talk with a lot of the people there, get ideas on mechanics, on pitch usage, on kind of a bunch of things, and then come back with a lot more ideas and things to try out.”
Advertisement
He returned by way of a rehab stint with High-A Spokane before rejoining Triple-A Albuquerque’s rotation, and whatever he found in Arizona worked. Over his final three Triple-A starts, Hughes didn’t allow a run.
The sweeper that changed everything
The centerpiece of that stretch has been a pitch that Hughes has thrown for only a few months. He picked up a sweeper in the middle of spring training — almost on a whim, after asking veteran Michael Lorenzen how he grips his own version on a back field one day. Hughes started experimenting in his next bullpen session, with mixed early results.
“I threw the first one about 10 feet over the catchers head and said ‘Hey, I’m done with it,” Hughes said, laughing.
Advertisement
Assistant pitching coach Gabe Ribas encouraged him to throw a few more, and the pitch stuck.
Hughes said learning any new offering comes with a learning curve — getting comfortable with the grip, the thought process, locating it for strikes — and this one was no exception, especially since he went straight from picking it up to using it in games. He credited Rockies Director of Pitching Matt Daniels with helping him refine the shape when it wasn’t quite where he wanted it.
Beyond the swing-and-miss value against right-handed hitters, Hughes said the sweeper has given him a new way to tunnel his other pitches. He described most of pitching as changing speeds, locations, and looks — and said the sweeper lets him do exactly that, playing off his two-seamer, curveball, changeup, and traditional slider to give hitters a different picture out of the same release.
Simplifying the game
The approach has been shaped as much by a mental shift as a mechanical one. Colorado’s new pitching staff this year installed a simplified three-part framework.
Advertisement
Get ahead. Stay ahead. Kill.
“Pre-two strike, I’m filling up the zone. Two strikes, I’m getting a little outside the zone for swing and miss, and for weak contact,” Hughes said. “I think that’s probably the biggest thing. It’s just really simplified my thinking. I’m filling up the zone, and then I can’t control anything that happens after that.”
Hughes has also leaned on that same instinct for simplicity to manage the mental side of pitching — staying in the moment rather than replaying the last pitch or bracing for the next one. He pointed to an outing this spring against Team USA in Scottsdale as an early proving ground. Facing a lineup that included Bryce Harper, Aaron Judge, and Kyle Schwarber, Hughes said the nerves the night before gave way to a simple realization once he took the mound.
“I don’t know what better lineup I’m going to face than that one,” Hughes said. “So it’s always in the back of my mind, knowing, hey, I’ve already done that, and I’m going to take that for where I’m going.”
Learning altitude, and learning to rest
Altitude, too, has become less of a mystery.
Advertisement
Hughes said the bigger adjustment isn’t how his pitches move differently in the thinner air — he doesn’t throw anything with the kind of movement that would create a drastic split — but simply learning where he has to locate the ball to be competitive at altitude compared to sea-level parks.
“I think a big part of it is understanding how your pitches are going to move and working with that, instead of wishing you had something else,” he said. “It’s just learning what you have and then working to maximize it the best you can.”
He’s also revamped his between-starts routine, trusting recovery as much as work. After a lesson learned late last season, Hughes says he’s scaled back the instinct to fill every day with extra reps in the gym, instead balancing high-output days with some genuinely light ones.
“Sometimes doing less is more,” he said. “I’m always the guy who wants to be in the gym, wants to be doing a ton of exercise. I think something I learned really at the end of last year is that sometimes the best thing to do is take a step back and let your body recover”
Advertisement
A new role, and a familiar face
Now that routine gets rebuilt on the fly.
Hughes has started 48 of his 50 minor league appearances, but he’ll begin his major league career in the bullpen, working as a length option for a Colorado relief corps that is often thinned out.
It’s uncharted territory — outside of a handful of spring training outing, he’s never really come out of the pen — and he say’s he’s leaning on teammates who’ve made the same jump, including Antonio Senzatela, with whom he trained this offseason.
“A lot of it’s just keeping it the same — it’s the same game, keep doing what I’m doing, and just go out there, have fun, and be loose, don’t over complicate it,” Hughes said of Senzatela’s advice.
Advertisement
As for who he wanted to see first walking into the Coors Field clubhouse, the answer came without hesitation: Jaden Hill, who’d known Hughes going back through the system, ran across the room and pulled him into a hug.
Scottsdale Scorpions v. Salt River Rafters
Hughes debuts with a save
On Friday night, the wait ended. Hughes was summoned from the bullpen in the seventh inning of what had become a rout, and tossed three scoreless innings, closing out a 15-3 win over the Giants. Under the rule that credits a reliever who finishes a game with three or more effective innings, it went down as a save — the first of his career, in the first game of his career.
Advertisement
“I didn’t know that was a save until after the game, honestly,” Hughes said. “I’m not really familiar with the rules for saves, but hey, I’ll take it. Senza just told me it took him 10 years to get one. I got mine in my first game.”
He could not, he said, have drawn it up any better.
“There’s no way to describe it,” Hughes said. “It seemed packed, and I could not draw up a better scenario for my first big league game than tonight. There are no words to describe the experience. It was incredible. It was life-altering. And I’m so excited that I was able to debut here at home, in front of so many people.”
Chills under the lights
The moment that stayed with him came in the ninth. With the game long decided and a crowd of over 47,000 people on hand, the Coors Field lights dimmed and the stands filled with the glow of phone flashlights on a fireworks Friday. Hughes, going through his pre-inning routine, looked toward center field and stopped.
Advertisement
“Can confirm that’s the first time that’s ever happened in my life,” he said. “The lights are going, everyone’s waving their flashlights, and I got chills. I took a second to be like, oh my gosh, I cannot believe how much this is affecting me right now — in such a good way, in such a positive way.”
He’d been active since Wednesday, waiting for the opportunity, and had spent each pregame the same way.
“Every day I’ve been on the mound before the game, doing some visualization, doing some breath work,” Hughes said, “because I knew when the moment got here it was going to be big. And I thought I was prepared — and I got out there, and it was still, wow.”
A collective endeavor
The people he wanted there most had made it just in time. Hughes found out about the call-up so late Tuesday night that none of his family could reach Denver for Wednesday. His father and grandparents arrived Thursday, and by Friday the whole group — his mother, aunts, uncles, cousins, and his girlfriend — was in the stands.
Advertisement
“Knowing that I would not be here without my parents and my entire family, the support system that they’ve given me — I’m getting emotional now just thinking about it,” Hughes said, his eyes welling. “This was absolutely a collective endeavor. I’m so excited to go out and see them, and just thank them.”
There was one rite of passage waiting before that reunion. Asked whether his teammates had given him the traditional postgame ambush, Hughes grinned.
“It was a lot more than shaving cream,” he said. “It ended with an ice bucket being dumped on me. I’m very glad it was in the shower when it happened.”
One word, he said, kept surfacing for all of it.
Advertisement
“Special. That’s the word that keeps coming to mind.”
To Read: Rockpiles
To Read: News
Join the conversation!
Sign up for a user account and get:
-
Comment on articles, community posts
-
Rec comments, community posts
-
New, improved notifications system!
Please keep in mind our Purple Row Community Guidelines when you’re commenting. Thanks!
Read the full article here
