Before he started pitching like an ace in the past month, Chad Bettis was an enigma. The talent appeared to be there — a major-league fastball and a killer curveball — but the results were not.
Two short stints with the Rockies over the past two years led to a 1-5 record, a 6.88 ERA and more questions than answers. Was he a starting pitcher? Was he a reliever? Did he truly have the stuff needed to win at the big-league level?
"Yeah, I got down," he admitted. "Honestly, I lost a lot of sleep over it.