Colorado Rockies sign Ty Blach to minor-league contract

The Colorado Rockies have signed left-handed pitcher Ty Blach to a minor-league contract, per MLB.com Rockies reporter Thomas Harding.

While Harding did not specifically say that Blach will be invited to spring training, the last sentence in his tweet sounds like that will indeed be the case.

Ty Blach, 31, is a soft-tossing left hander who has yet to experience consistent success at the Major League level. Blach is perhaps best known as a member of the San Francisco Giants with whom he functioned as a swingman from 2016-2019. In his Giants career, Blach made 87 appearances (39 starts) with a 4.56 ERA and well below average strikeout-per nine innings and walk-per nine inning rates (4.7 and 2.9, respectively). While not a huge strikeout pitcher, Blach was very successful at limiting the long ball, especially in 2018 when he surrendered just eight home runs in 118.2 innings of work.

In a brief stint with the Baltimore Orioles in 2019 — Blach’s last major league action to this point — the lefty gave up 26 runs in just 20.2 innings to the tune of a 11.32 ERA across five starts. This poor performance led to him being designated for assignment and ultimately sent outright to the club’s Triple-A affiliate at the end of the 2019 season.

Blach, a Denver native, then missed the entirety of the 2020 season after undergoing Tommy John surgery on July 15 and ended up being released by the Orioles a month later.

In March of this past season, the O’s re-signed Blach to a minor-league contract. While he did not make any appearances on the big league club in 2021, he put up some ridiculously good numbers in Triple-A. Functioning as a sort of minor league “opener” all season, Blach made 15 starts with the club, striking out 23 and walking just one in 22 innings pitched. Remarkably, Blach also did not surrender a single home run in his time pitching in the Orioles’ system.

With Lucas Gilbreath listed as the only lefty in the Colorado Rockies bullpen as of right now, Blach will have a legitimate chance at his first big league action since 2019, especially if he is able to replicate his successes from 2021.