GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — Chad Zurat will begin his second year as a Colorado Rockies minor leaguer pitcher in Idaho this weekend, just not for the Boise Hawks in the Class A Short-Season Northwest League.
With just a few days left in extended spring training, the former Clearfield Area High School and Penn State Behrend standout was informed he would be reporting to Grand Junction in the Class A Short-Season Pioneer League.
That decision by members of the Rockies’ Baseball Operations Player Development Department was just the first surprise for Zurat, who landed in the city located just off Interstate 70 in Western Colorado last Wednesday.
The second one was even more of a shocker for the 6-2, 215-pound right-hander who was a reliever for most of his schoolboy and college career, including all 10 appearances for the Tri-City Dust Devils after signing with the Northwest League team in July last year.
On Saturday, Zurat was told he would be the starter for Grand Junction’s second game of the season at Idaho Falls Friday night.
“I wasn’t expecting that at all,’’ Zurat said before an early-week workout. “Honestly, I didn’t have a clue. I think they’re gonna see what I can do and whether starting is the right path for me.
“I’m very happy with the opportunity, and I’m excited.”
Zurat expects to be working with a pitch count, as will all of the Rockie starters early in the season.
“”We’ll be kind of limited to build up our arm strength,” he noted “After a couple of starts, we’ll go as long as we can.”
Zurat was quite pleased with his one-inning or two-inning stints during the second half of extended spring training in Scottsdale, Ariz.
“I got more consistent with my delivery, and I got a lot of groundball outs,” he explained. “I was able to develop a cutter. It gives me a different type of breaking ball. I’ve been throwing it a lot more lately.”
Adding the cutter, which gives Zurat a third off-speed pitch to go with a curve and a changeup, was suggested by Bob Apodaca, a former New York Mets hurler who works with Colorado pitchers in the low minors after several years as the pitching coach for the National League club.
Apodaca was hands on for a couple of days.
Zurat’s instructor during the last two weeks of extended spring training was Grand Junction pitching coach Ryan Kibler, whose 2014 staff walked the fewest hitters in the Pioneer League and was the first with less than 200 free passes since 2009, .
“We just continued to work on it,“ Zurat said. “Every day, we were playing catch. I kept throwing to get the right feel for it.
“The cutter has become a really big pitch for me. I’m hoping to use it throughout the season.”
Zurat actually threw a cutter in high school but relied primarily on his two-seam fastball after becoming a very successful closer at Erie Behrend.
Grand Junction and the Idaho Falls Chukkars are members of the Pioneer League’s South Division along with the Ogden (Utah) Raptors and Orem (Utah) Owlz.
Four teams in Montana make up the North Division, the Billings Mustangs, the Helena Brewers, the Missoula Osprey and the Great Falls Voyagers.
Sam Suplizio Field in Lincoln Park is home for the Rockies and has a seating capacity of 7,014 that is the second largest in the league.
The stadium was named in honor of the former all-round standout athlete at DuBois High School and two-sport star at the University of New Mexico whose minor league career was cut short by an injury just days before he was to be called up to the majors by the New York Yankees in the 1950s.
Suplizio, who played minor league ball for the Denver Bears, later became a very successful businessman and a civic leader in Grand Junction. He was instrumental in bringing major league baseball to Denver and forming and then chairing for 32 years the organization that brought the National Junior College Tournament Grand Junction.