DENVER -- Ezequiel Tovar’s season has been a grind, but the Rockies shortstop is leaving himself something to build on after a rough year that still ended with a late push.
Tovar went 2-for-4 with his 12th home run Wednesday night at Coors Field, a small bright spot in a 5-3 loss to the Diamondbacks that pushed Colorado to loss No. 101. The result didn’t change the big picture, but Tovar has at least started to resemble himself again down the stretch.
Over his last 39 games, he is hitting .301 (31-for-103). In 16 games this month, he is slashing .317/.349/.488.
That surge has not erased the damage from the season as a whole - he entered Wednesday with a .218 average and .611 OPS, numbers that helped turn him from a regular in the lineup into a player who has often been subbed out. Still, after a poor 2026 and a .253 season in 95 games last year while dealing with hip and oblique injuries, there’s at least a hint of the shortstop who led the National League with 45 doubles in 2024.
The 24-year-old said recently in the clubhouse that he feels better now than he did a year ago, when he was worn down. He credited the offseason work he put in to strengthen his body.
“I feel healthy, blessed,” Tovar said. “I trained a lot last offseason because it’s a long season. I’m still playing, so I feel happy.”
The season ends Sunday, but Tovar is already looking ahead to the work he believes will help him climb back toward the top of his game. He said his training plan helped because he didn’t focus too narrowly on the injured areas. Instead, he worked his whole body, while still keeping up with baseball preparation.
“I do it all together,” said Tovar, who is three years into a $63.5 million contract through 2030. “It’s not like I focus on one body part. It’s 30 minutes in the gym, 30 minutes ground balls, 30 minutes hitting, whatever -- it’s not like I’m going to try to work on one thing and that’s it.
“Right now, my hitting feels a little better. But I think it’s more mental.”
Tovar plans to head back to his South Florida home and spend time in Venezuela as he usually does. He is also considering going to the Rockies’ complex in Scottsdale, Ariz., early in the offseason to keep working against Major League velocity from a machine.
The biggest piece of the offseason, though, is mental. Tovar is arranging a trip to Puerto Rico to train with Rockies third-base coach Andy Gonzalez, who has become a trusted mentor and a tough voice in his corner.
“Without a doubt this is the worst season he’s ever had, including in the Minor Leagues since he signed with us,” Gonzalez said. “Nobody was expecting this season out of him. He can tell you that himself.”
Gonzalez is set to coach third base for Santurce in the Puerto Rican Winter League. Tovar is not signed as an active player, but he intends to do full baseball workouts there as if he were preparing for games. Gonzalez said that could include seeing game-speed pitching, whether Tovar is tracking pitches from the batter’s box during bullpen sessions or facing pitchers in live batting practice.
The emphasis is on fixing swing decisions, an area where the numbers have been ugly. Per Statcast, Tovar ranks first among MLB players with at least 100 pitches in swing rate on low-and-away pitches out of the strike zone at 40.4 percent. He is also first at 46.4 percent in swing rate on non-fastballs out of the strike zone, and seventh at 36.5 percent in swinging at the first pitch of a plate appearance among players with at least 150 pitches.
In plain terms, that means he’s been getting himself into trouble by chasing pitches down and away and by hacking at first pitches. The consequence is that pitchers don’t have to give him a strike right away, and they can work him into deeper counts.
Tovar has long chased pitches when he was at his best, but this season he lost the ability to punish the high fastball. Lately, including Wednesday’s homer off Brandyn Garcia’s 97.9 mph sinker, Gonzalez said Tovar has been “just being a little earlier on the fastball.”
“At some point, he lost confidence in himself during the season, and that’s part of being human, part of what happens to any athlete,” Gonzalez said. “He knows he needs to make this offseason the best he’s ever had to prepare for the next year.”
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