Rock­ies pitch­er Kyle Free­land thrives on the ener­gy of a packed ball­park while star­ing down oppos­ing bat­ters. A glob­al pan­dem­ic elim­i­nat­ed the roar. Free­land found a way to adapt.

“You’ve got to do your best to fab­ri­cate that inten­si­ty,” Free­land said. “To lock into your zone and get to that men­tal state where it’s almost like there is a crowd there and you can feed off that adren­a­line. I’m one of those pitch­ers when I’m locked into my zone, I have that inten­si­ty where it doesn’t mat­ter if there are 50,000 peo­ple at Coors Field scream­ing or absolute­ly nobody in the stands.”

Freeland’s mound mind-games are work­ing. Enter­ing Tues­day night, his sev­en qual­i­ty starts were tied with Yu Darvish (Cubs) and Zac Gallen (Dia­mond­backs) atop the Nation­al League. Free­land is 2–1 with a 3.60 ERA this season.

How­ev­er, it seems not all Col­orado pitch­ers embrace the stage exact­ly like Freeland.

“It’s prob­a­bly helped some of our guys with no crowd” for increased focus in a mut­ed venue, Rock­ies man­ag­er Bud Black said. Those accus­tomed to pitch­ing in late and often high-inten­si­ty innings, though, face the biggest challenge.

“There are big moments, big crowds, and phys­i­cal­ly (with­out fans) you feel a lit­tle dif­fer­ent,” Black said. “You have to be able to han­dle that.”

Rock­ies reliev­er Yen­cy Almonte keeps his approach sim­ple amid rel­a­tive pitch­ing silence.

“I like the crowd noise and when the fans are in it, espe­cial­ly in late-game sit­u­a­tions, the crowd noise ele­vates me to go out there to per­form,” Almonte said. “I tell myself: ‘This is a late-inning. This is do-or-die right now.’ Then, I just go out there and pitch.”

Estevez strug­gling. Rock­ies’ reliev­er Car­los Estevez allowed the walk-off dou­ble Mon­day night that hand­ed the Padres a 1–0 vic­to­ry in the bot­tom of the ninth.

“That’s where you’ve got to talk to him: ‘Hey, one pitch it defined the game, but it shouldn’t define you mov­ing for­ward as long as you learn from it,’” Black said. “We had a con­ver­sa­tion last night and (pitch­ing coach) Steve Fos­ter caught up with Car­los again this after­noon on a few things.”

Estevez had over­come a scary right-hand injury in August with five con­sec­u­tive out­ings allow­ing zero runs. But Estevez — 1–2 this sea­son with a 6.41 ERA — has now giv­en up sev­en runs over his last three appearances.

“He’s a valu­able part of our bullpen based on his track record and what we think he can do as a late-inning reliev­er,” Black said. “He’s got big stuff, a big arm and the weapons. What stood out to me is that he’s been ahead in the count over the last num­ber of appear­ances, has made a bad pitch, and they haven’t missed it.”

Injury update. Rock­ies’ clos­er Wade Davis was placed on the 10-day injury list (right shoul­der) last month and is pro­gress­ing toward a poten­tial return with less than 20 games remain­ing this season.

“Davis threw a cou­ple of days ago and is feel­ing good. He’s mak­ing progress. The shoul­der is bet­ter,” Black said. “He’s throw­ing com­pet­i­tive­ly, albeit in intrasquad games against his own team­mates. There is some inten­si­ty to what he’s doing. … The deci­sion at some point is com­ing with Wade. We’ve got to make sure that his arm is built up where he can effec­tive­ly be a part of our bullpen. This is dif­fer­ent than a lot of Sep­tem­bers where you can expand the ros­ter and have a whole bunch of pitching.”

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Rock­ies RHP Anto­nio Sen­za­tela (3–1, 3.33 ERA) at Padres RHP Zach Davies (6–2, 2.23 ERA)
6:10 p.m. Wednes­day, Coors Field
TV: AT&T SportsNet
Radio: KOA 850 AM/94.1 AM

Sen­za­tela makes his ninth start on Wednes­day in hopes of recap­tur­ing his ear­ly-sea­son mag­ic. Since start­ing the year with three con­sec­u­tive wins, he is 0–1 with four no-deci­sions. In his last start, Sen­za­tela allowed two earned runs in 5 1/3 innings. He is 7–1 with a 2.73 ERA life­time against the Padres. Davies — acquired by San Diego last Novem­ber via trade after five years with the Brew­ers — is in the midst of a career-best sea­son. He’s won four con­sec­u­tive games and has struck out at least five bat­ters in sev­en of eight starts. In two games this sea­son against the Rock­ies, Davies is 1–1 with a 2.53 ERA.

Trend­ing: Enter­ing Tues­day night, the Rock­ies’ 3.53 road ERA ranked third in the Nation­al League and fifth in MLB.

At issue: Col­orado is 3–5 over its first eight meet­ings with San Diego this sea­son and the Rock­ies were shut out in their last two games (6–0 and 1–0) head­ing into Tues­day night.

Pitch­ing Probables:

Thurs­day: OFF

Fri­day: Angels RHP Grif­fin Can­ning (0–3, 4.54) at Rock­ies RHP Ger­man Mar­quez (2–5, 4.58)

Sat­ur­day: Angels Jamie Bar­ria (0–0, 3.38) at Rock­ies RHP Ryan Castel­lani (1–2, 5.34)