It's almost the end of July and Kyle Freeland's baseball season is just getting started.
Freeland's opening day was Friday, when he took the mound for Grand Junction of the rookie-level Pioneer League. He made his first start of the season. The left-handed pitcher and first-round pick of the Rockies in the 2014 draft missed most of the first four months of the season because of shoulder problems and surgery to remove bone chips from his elbow.
On the eve of his first start, he was eager to get back to work.
"I'm looking at it as a way of getting my arm strength back and getting mentally prepared to pitch in a game," said Freeland, who came out of the University of Evansville by way of Denver's Thomas Jefferson High School.