When the Rock­ies opened spring train­ing way back in Feb­ru­ary, Wade Davis was pen­ciled in as the clos­er, with Scott Oberg as clos­er 1A.

Right-han­der Daniel Bard? He was the feel-good sto­ry of the camp; a 35-year-old who had over­come a case of the yips and was try­ing to make a come­back after being out of the majors for sev­en seasons.

My how things have changed. Davis has missed most of the sea­son with shoul­der woes and might not pitch again in a Rock­ies uni­form. Scott Oberg is out for the sea­son as he bat­tles blood clots in his right arm for the third time in four seasons.

Bard is now the clos­er and he’s thriv­ing in that high-pres­sure role. He has six saves in six oppor­tu­ni­ties, includ­ing back-to-back saves at Los Ange­les on Sat­ur­day and Sun­day as the Rock­ies final­ly won a series over the Dodgers.

Since allow­ing a walk-off homer in a 4–3 loss on Aug. 22 at Dodger Sta­di­um, Bard has five saves while allow­ing three hits and one run with four walks and nine strike­outs in six games. Oppo­nents have hit just .150 over that span.

All of which begs a ques­tion from man­ag­er Bud Black. Did he envi­sion any of this when Bard was sim­ply try­ing to make the team?

“I didn’t know what to expect,” Black said pri­or to Mon­day night’s game at San Diego. “I saw some video, I talked to some of our scouts, and I talked to (assis­tant gen­er­al man­ag­er) Jon Weil, who was the dri­ving force behind this. And Jon was con­fi­dent in Daniel and where he thought Daniel was as far as his pitching.”

But when Black saw Bard pitch for the first time in spring train­ing, he knew Bard had a real shot.

“It looked right, it looked like a big-league pitch­er is sup­posed to look,” Black said. “As each day went on, that kept get­ting val­i­dat­ed. .. Every­thing led me to believe that this was going to happen.”

On July 25 at Globe Life Ball­park in Arling­ton, Texas — 2,646 days after he had last appeared in a major league game — Bard relieved Jon Gray in the fifth inning. Bard pitched 1 1/3 score­less innings in Colorado’s 3–2 win over the Rangers. It was Bard’s first win since May 29, 2012, when he pitched 5 1/3 innings for the Boston Red Sox and beat Justin Verlander’s Detroit Tigers.

“You could tell that Daniel was ready for that moment,” Black said. “After he retired the side in his sec­ond inning of work, I went to the end of the dugout where he was sit­ting and the only thing he said was, ‘Bud­dy, that was so fun.’ It was like a weight had been lift­ed off him that had been on him for sev­en years. He got back to being joyful.”

Fuentes rakes. First base­man Josh Fuentes, who was not in the start­ing line­up Mon­day night against the Padres, is hit­ting .370 (10-for-27) with a .993 OPS. He’s in the midst of a career-best eight-game hit­ting streak and he deliv­ered two huge hits in Colorado’s week­end vic­to­ries over the Dodgers — a two-run, pinch-hit dou­ble on Sat­ur­day, and his first home run of the sea­son on Sunday.

Fuentes point­ed out a num­ber of rea­sons why he’s pro­duc­ing, includ­ing get­ting more con­sis­tent at-bats and adjust­ing to his role as a semi-reg­u­lar play­er in the majors. But there is one thing, more than any oth­er, that has made a difference.

“The biggest part for me was the nerves,” he said before Monday’s game. “As long as I kept my nerves down and wasn’t jump­ing at the base­ball and try­ing to do things I wasn’t capa­ble of, and just stick­ing to what I do best, that’s been the most impor­tant part.”

Words of wis­dom. Right-han­der Chi Chi Gon­za­lez, who’s sched­uled to start Tuesday’s game at San Diego, is most effec­tive when he gets oppos­ing hit­ters out on weak con­tact and coax­es them to hit balls into the dirt. He shared some words that Black passed on to him recently.

“Bud, the oth­er day, walked around the out­field, and he said to me, ‘Babe Ruth is dead,’ ” Gon­za­lez said. “He said, ‘Throw it over the mid­dle, throw it over the plate and let them hit it to somebody.”

Foot­notes.  The Rock­ies signed right-hand­ed pitch­er AJ Ramos to a minor league deal and added him to the 60-man play­er pool on Mon­day. Ramos, 33, hasn’t pitched in the majors since under­go­ing shoul­der surgery in 2018. … Per the Elias Sports Bureau, Sat­ur­day and Sun­day marked the first time in fran­chise his­to­ry that the Rock­ies have scored the win­ning run in the eighth inning or lat­er in two con­sec­u­tive games at Dodger Stadium.

On Deck

Rock­ies RHP Chi Chi Gon­za­lez (0–0, 5.00 ERA) at Padres RHP Mike Clevinger (1–2, 3.14)
7:10 p.m. Tues­day, Pet­co Park
TV: AT&T SportsNet
Radio: KOA 850 AM/94.1 AM

Gon­za­lez will be mak­ing his first start since ear­ly in the sea­son, after which he land­ed on the injured list with right biceps ten­dini­tis from Aug. 7–29. He pitched two innings of relief last Wednes­day, allow­ing two runs (one earned) on three hits in Colorado’s 9–6 come-from-behind vic­to­ry over San Fran­cis­co. He has a 4.85 ERA in three games (two starts) vs. the Padres but has no deci­sions. Tues­day will be right-han­der Mike Clevinger’s sec­ond start with the Padres after he came to San Diego as part of a block­buster sev­en-play­er trade with Cleve­land. The right-han­der allowed two runs and sev­en hits over six innings, strik­ing out two and walk­ing one in his first out­ing. He’s faced the Rock­ies just once, on June 7, 2017 at Coors Field as a starter for the Indi­ans. He got rocked, serv­ing up a three-run dou­ble to Anto­nio Sen­za­tela in the sec­ond inning and a two-run homer to Car­los Gon­za­lez in the third. He was gone after four innings, hav­ing giv­en up five runs on four hits and three walks.

Trend­ing: Lead­off hit­ter Raimel Tapia entered Monday’s game on a nine-game hit­ting streak, tied for the sec­ond-longest streak of his career. He is hit­ting .378 (14-for-37) over the nine games, with six runs, two dou­bles, one triple, one home run and five RBIs.

At issue: Right-hand­ed reliev­er Jeff Hoff­man has strug­gled of late, which is reflect­ed in his 9.19 ERA and .328 bat­ting aver­age against. He’s been scored upon in four straight out­ings, six of his past sev­en and in sev­en of his last nine. That after allow­ing only one run through his first five appear­ances this season.

Pitch­ing Probables

• Wednes­day: Rock­ies RHP Anto­nio Sen­za­tela (3–1, 3.33) at Padres RHP Zach Davies (6–2, 2.23), 7:10 p.m., ATTRM
• Thurs­day: OFF
• Fri­day: Angels RHP Grif­fin Can­ning (0–3, 4.54) at Rock­ies RHP Ger­man Mar­quez (2–5, 4.58), 6:40 p.m., ATTRM