New Mexico native Chase Silseth says return to Big Leagues is on track, physically and mentally

Chase Silseth is starting to feel like he’s in a good place again.

No, the 24-year-old Farmington native isn’t back up in the Big Leagues yet, playing for the Los Angeles Angels like he was before a freak concussion (2023) and elbow surgery (2024) cut his time there short.

And, no, he’s not entirely past a stretch of inconsistency that’s been bugging him on the mound.

But the right-handed pitcher for the Triple-A Salt Lake Bees, who struck out six and allowed just one run and one hit in 5.0 innings of work in Thursday’s 5-3 win over the Albuquerque Isotopes, says he’s confident things are on track for him right now — both mentally and physically, and both on and off the field.

And it all started to happen when he was at his lowest.

“When you’re going through injury, you’re sitting there, you’re rehabbing, and it’s like you’re living in a Groundhogs Day,” Silseth said of going through the past couple of seasons of struggle. “It’s like one of those tough things — my family wasn’t with me. I was out there alone with the other guys who were rehabbing. It’s just one of those things that’s tough, you know?

“I felt like I was at an all-time low there because I wasn’t — I had baseball really kind of taken away. So it was like self examination. What do I want to do? This (baseball) is what I want to do. So I need to use everything that I can to be the best I could be — off field, on the field, wherever I’m at. ... That self examination was good.”

Silseth, the 2018 New Mexico Gatorade Player of the Year, now lives in Arizona with his girlfriend and their young daughter and, since November, has been seeing a mental coach — one who he admitted probably wouldn’t be too pleased with his mid-game slamming down of the rosin bag in frustration during a tough moment in Thursday’s otherwise stellar start against the Isotopes.

Monday, he even took time to go visit his old Albuquerque Baseball Academy friends, and pitching coach Tim Campos, in particular, who helped him work through some mechanical issues.

Help — from Campos, his family and the mental coach — have him feeling pretty confident right now.

He feels he’s found a peace in balance lately — knowing when it’s time to be a father, and when it’s time to be a baseball player, and realizing he can do both at a high level with the right mindset.

“When I get in the shower before I come to the field, I’m washing off the loving dad (part of me) and things like that. Because when I wash all that off, I have a job to do — come here and I have to be Chase the baseball player, Chase the lion, whatever it is,” Silseth said. “I’m out here to compete and get my work done. And then, at the end of the day, when the game is done, I can go shower off Chase the baseball player and then I’m in the (mindset) where I need to be a lamb, serve my daughter and serve my significant other to that standard.”

WE HARDLY KNEW YOU: If any Colorado Rockies fan was a little nervous about how the organization’s No. 1-ranked minor league prospect, right-handed pitcher Chase Dollander, would fare in the high-altitude, hitter-friendly Isotopes Park, fear not.

He won’t pitch here in Albuquerque after all.

The 23-year-old Dollander, after just one Triple-A start last week at Sacramento, has already been called up to the Big Leagues, the Rockies announced on Friday afternoon.

In his lone start for Albuquerque, he went 4.0 innings, allowed six hits, one run (earned), struck out five hitters and walked two, getting a no decision in a 2-1 Isotopes win.

He was the Rockies’ first round draft pick (No. 9 overall) out of Tennessee in the 2023 MLB Draft.