DENVER — In the manager’s office deep within Coors Field in downtown Denver, approximately 1,966 miles away from Fenway Park in Boston, Terry Francona smiles as he talks about Daniel Bard, the pitcher he saw burst onto the scene as a Boston Red Sox rookie in 2009, walk away from the game in 2013 because of the yips, and become reborn as a dominant reliever now with the Colorado Rockies.
Francona is in town to lead the Cleveland Guardians against the Rockies, and he saw Bard take the mound on Tuesday night and pitch a scoreless inning against his team. Cleveland eventually won the game, but Bard did his job for the Rockies when he took over the game in the ninth.
“Any time we’re going to face him, we obviously want to score runs. That’s the most negative thing I will ever say about that kid,” Francona said. “He is one of the true good guys in our game.”
Francona and Bard met on the field for a bit before Wednesday’s game in a moment between two men now wearing different uniforms that brought back plenty of flashbacks for anyone who followed the Boston Red Sox just over a decade ago.
The intersection of Terry Francona, Daniel Bard, and their legacies and time with the Boston Red Sox
Bard’s 12-pitch performance against Cleveland brought back memories for Francona of the years in Boston where Bard would flash his dominance. In his first 192 games for the Red Sox under Francona’s watch (2009-11), Bard posted a 2.88 ERA/3.22 FIP/1.056 WHIP as one of Boston’s primary weapons in the setup role.
“I told him pretty close to when he got there that I didn’t see a reason why he shouldn’t be pitching in the eighth inning,” Francona recalled. “I said, ‘Go do it,’ and I just tried to stay out of the way. He did a pretty damn good job.”
Those moments in a Red Sox uniform seeing Bard take the mound hit Francona in a special way on Tuesday night.
“When he hit the mound, it kind of backed me up a little bit. That’s how fond I am of that kid,” Francona said.
The feeling is mutual for Bard, who credits Francona for a key moment in his confidence as a hard-throwing rookie used as a seventh-inning guy with Billy Wagner and Jonathan Papelbon waiting in the wings to close out the game. Bard vividly remembers August 9, 2009, and how he had just surrendered the lead for the Red Sox at Yankee Stadium by giving up a pair of home runs.
“I’m down in the dumps and I was out there shagging (fly balls) the next day and he came out to check on me,” Bard recalled. “He asked, ‘Hey, how are you doing, kid?’ I was like, ‘Not too great.’ He said to me, ‘Well, if we get the lead in the seventh again, you’re my guy again.’ I thought if he believes in me that maybe I should believe in myself.”
Bard said he reminded Francona about that conversation on Wednesday. While Francona doesn’t remember those pivotal moments from 2009, Bard certainly does.
“I told him those things had such a big impact on me believing I could be a big leaguer,” Bard said. “Even though you look at it and people say, ‘Oh, he can 100 miles per hour. He should have all of the confidence.’ But you still have to breathe a lot of confidence into people, and he did that for me.”
Flash forward now, and what did Francona see from the soon-to-be-37-year-old Bard that was different from the player he watched more than a decade ago in Boston?
“He always threw hard and had a great breaking ball,” Francona said. “For a while there, there were never any issues throwing strikes. He just beat people up. He was durable. He had what you were looking for.”
The 28th overall pick by the Red Sox in the 2006 MLB draft, there is no question that Bard is a different pitcher than he was in his younger days in Boston (although his four-seam fastball velocity, per FanGraphs, was 97.8 mph in 2009 versus 98.3 mph this year). It’s more the wisdom that has come from experience rather than big differences in pitches.
And that experience came with a price. Bard pitched in just two games in the 2013 season before walking away from the mound because of the yips. It would be quite the journey for Bard to find his way back to the baseball with the Rockies, earning the National League Comeback Player of the Year Award in 2020 after posting six saves for Colorado in the pandemic-shortened season where little else went right for the team. The next season, Bard logged 20 saves and has 14 this season heading into Thursday’s action.
He has also picked up quite the light show when he enters the game in Colorado.
Daniel Bard has a light show for his walk-out in the 9th.
— Colorado Rockies (@Rockies) June 4, 2022
IT IS ELECTRIC 😱‼️ pic.twitter.com/77EyR8jDIO
A lot has changed over the years for both Bard and Francona, but the mutual respect and admiration for each other still runs deep.
“He’s a good baseball person who is also just such a nice guy,” Bard said. “It goes beyond baseball for us. He was there when I made my debut, so that’s a relationship you never forget.”