Kyle Freeland needed a reality check.

The southpaw’s slow start to 2018 was sitting heavy on his shoulders in a home start against Milwaukee, and he needed a voice of reason. Chris Iannetta’s impromptu mound visit checked the box.

The veteran catcher jogged out to the mound and spoke bluntly.

“He came out and said, ‘I don’t give a s*** what the scouting report says, we’re throwing inside and making these dudes uncomfortable,’” Freeland recalled. “I started doing it, breaking bats and getting easy innings.

“That was the start everything clicked.”

His earned run average fell to 3.42 after 6 1/3 scoreless innings against the Brewers. Then it fell to 3.11 over his next 11 starts. When he put the bow on his final outing against Washington, he had put together the greatest single-season ERA in franchise history (2.85). Next to him in the 2018 rotation was Germán Márquez with a 3.77 mark, a top-10 figure in franchise history at the time.

The two completed the greatest tandem season in Rockies’ pitching history and helped them to their second consecutive postseason appearance. And they competed with one another to do it.

“I love competition,” Márquez said. “I want to win, and I want to compete. I have so much respect for Kyle, and the competition made me a better pitcher.”

Results resembled an avalanche as the 2018 season rolled on.

Both suffered slow starts with chilled weather but heated up as the season stretched. Freeland had a 4.24 ERA in April and March while Márquez sat at 5.14 through the opening month. By August, the latter reeled off one of the greatest stretches in franchise history — 12 starts that spanned 80 1/3 innings with only 20 earned runs allowed. Freeland did too and allowed 20 earned runs in 75 2/3 frames.

Baseball is a game of adjustments. Pitchers adjust to hitters and the seesaw tips back and forth until a victor emerges in the end.

During a stretch like 2018, the sport changes. Tweaks become an enemy to continued momentum.

“When you’re rolling like that, you just ride the wave,” Freeland said. “You continue to feed off success and you feed off of one another. It’s a season I’ve been chasing ever since. That year was exactly what you ask for out of your starters — close to 200 innings and being leaders who show what we can do at Coors Field and take it out on the road.”

Injuries, missed pitches and a team moving in a losing direction have made recreating the season hard.

Márquez did so in 2020’s shortened slate with a 3.75 ERA but Tommy John surgery put his career on hold for the last year. Freeland dealt with the other side of baseball’s fortunes in 2019 when he worked through a demotion and a 6.73 ERA to put together 4.33 marks the next two seasons before a 4.53 figure in 2022.

Teammates Cal Quantrill and Austin Gomber are leading the way in 2024, much like Freeland and Márquez did in 2018. Neither was around the last time two Rockies’ pitchers put together such a season but are trying to recreate it anyway.

Enjoy the ride. The waves have highs that are hard to replicate.