Coors Field is universally recognized as the best hitting park in baseball, and the stats back it up.
A new tool available through Baseball Savant shows that offense was boosted 15 percent from league average in games at Coors Field over the past three years, which is "more or less what it does every year," (via MLB.com's Mike Petriello). We saw 17 percent more home runs, 19 percent more hits, 101 percent more triples and so many more stats that display the obvious benefit for hitters. That high altitude is a pitcher's worst enemy, and that's just the accepted nature of a visit to the Rockies' home field.
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Just don't tell Adam Wainwright that. In his career at Coors, the Cardinals veteran is 4-0 with a 2.22 ERA across seven games, including Thursday's eight-inning, two-run outing that St. Louis ultimately lost. That sure wasn't Waino's fault, though, and he once again defied the park factors that give so many other pitchers fits during their visits to Denver. In fact, of every pitcher that has logged at least 30 innings at Coors Field in MLB history, Wainwright ranks third in ERA (via Stathead):
So how does he do it — outside of just generally pitching better than most — with such consistency? He provided some insight as to the mentality he brings with him whenever he has to visit the notorious hitter-friendly stadium.
"There was something mentally I did, one of my first couple times here," Wainwright explained after the game. "It was realizing usually the guy I'm pitching against doesn't want to pitch here. If I embrace that, then I have an edge right away, and I just try to keep that mentality. Whether it's true or not, that's the way I'm thinking when I go out there.
"Pitching here is the ultimate art craft, I just love it. I love coming here to pitch, it doesn't make any sense in the world, but I just — because you've got to do things differently. You've got to go up when you don't normally go up, you've got to go a little slower sometimes, you've got to go a little harder some times. You've got to really rip your breaking balls, you've got to change speeds, you've got to use stuff you don't normally use. That's pitching, that's pitching to me, so it's just fun."
As with many of the other greats, it's Waino's mentality that, in combination with his mastery of pitching, has allowed for so much success throughout his career. We've seen several other examples of this, and seeing the Cardinals great do the same comes as no surprise.
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